The word "thug" comes from the Thuggee (deceivers) who allegedly plagued India prior to the arrival of the British. Though there is some controversy nowadays as to the extent of their existence, tales of their exploits made a strong impression on the 19th Century British and helped justify a stronger colonial presence on the Indian subcontinent.

Confessions of a Thug is the story of one of these men, Ameer Ali, a Muslim thug who led a long and successful career as a Thug before his luck ran out. Ali relats his story to an English interviewer, starting with the death of his father at the hands of thugs and his adoption by the band's leader. Soon, he is grown up and interested in taking up the family trade, which his bravery and cleverness make him particularly suited to.

Though the interviewer occasionally interjects to render moral observations on the action, the voice that predominates is that of Ali, who comes across as an interesting anti-hero. With his cunning and boldness and his travels across India in search of those to rob, he comes across as an exotic adventurer-criminal, like some mix of Sinbad the Sailor and Tony Soprano. This is somewhat underscored by his tales of commanding men under the Pindaris, using freebooting armies to extort treasure from defenseless communities. Ali is as proud of his battlefield exploits as of his work with the strangling cloth.

An interesting story of crime and death on the Indian subcontinent, with many interesting local details. Somewhat dated nowadays, especially in its transliterations from Hindi, but still an interesting read.

After i saw a recent Tamil movie called "Theeran: Adhiyayam ondru", i started reading about the Thugs and their history and came to know that Aamir Khan's next movie "Thugs of Hindostan" is based on this book "Confessions of a Thug" which was written around 1830s when Thuggee was demolished by British in India. Then i searched for it and found it online. When i started reading, it was really unbelievable that these kinds of people existed in India at that time. First few murders shocked me and from then on its just the Ameer Ali(lead role)'s confession of murders after murders all his life. Though i was shocked about the murders initially, after reading more and more about it, the shock reduced gradually and i got used to reading about them, the same way Ameer Ali got used to killing people. But at many stage of the book i thought this would be end of it and he will seek redemption from henceforth, he kept doing his deed again and again and he never had any remorse for it and he really did it as a job or as he is addicted to it. I could relate this tale to many of the gangster saga i have seen such as Goodfellas(climax is almost as same), Breaking Bad (How Walter White became drug lord and he liked it) etc. Once i completed the book, i was not shocked by all the murders i came across, but by how men can do these many murders and still have no remorse about it.

I'm not sure what to make of this book. When I picked it up I had no idea what it was about (I didn't know the origins of the word 'thug' and assumed the word had the same meaning it commonly has now). So I did learn something from the book... I just found reading it a very strange experience. There's an inconsistency in the narrator; he appears remorseful in parts of the narrative, and completely merciless in others. One could argue that that's deliberate, and not a strange decision regarding character who is a murderer. I wonder if the inconsistency isn't caused by something else though - trying to write a character who is appealing and understandable, while also trying to write about something fraught with colonial fears - resulting in a character whose monstrous at times, because of the writers bias regarding the subject matter, and understandable at other times because of the writers instinct to create a relatable character... The whole thing feels very odd.