The 'news' reached those of us in class VII-B almost by accident, after everyone else in the school had already heard it: Hindi film actor Danny Denzongpa would be executed for engaging in spying activities on behalf of the Chinese government.
The year was 1982, and this news was preceded by a series of unfortunate events for Mangaldai, a small, nondescript town in Assam's Brahmaputra Valley. These included two monsoon hurricanes (known in Assam as Bordoisila) uprooting the supposedly invincible coconut trees, and the sojourn of a confused wild elephant to the town, leading to loss of lives and property, and finally ending in its death at the hands of hunters.
During the next few days, the major topic of discussion in school was Danny's imminent hanging. Some, buoyed by the nationalistic fervour imparted by the All Assam Students Union (AASU) agitation, expressed their happiness at the fate of a traitor; while some others, perhaps due to their parents – in whose mind the 1962 China-India conflict and its consequences were still alive – expressed their worry that this execution could lead to another conflict. My father, amused by our anxiety, told us that the news about Denzongpa could not be true, as neither the newspapers nor the radio had mentioned it. He commented that even if Danny was a James Bond-like spy – filming movies by day and spying for China at night – his greater crime was acting in too many formulaic Hindi movies. He reassured us, saying that if the hanging of Billa and Ranga could take about three and a half years, poor Danny would not be executed so quickly.
Jasbir and Kuljeet Singh (aka Billa and Ranga) had kidnapped for ransom the Chopra siblings, Geeta (17) and Sanjay (15), on 26 August 1978. Three days later, when Geeta and Sanjay's bodies were recovered, it was found that Geeta had been raped before being murdered. Billa and Ranga were career criminals, only just released from the Arthur Road Jail in Bombay. Geeta and Sanjay, who had been on their way to the All India Radio building at Parliament Street in New Delhi for a radio programme, had hitched a ride in a cream-coloured Fiat, stolen by the two criminals. Billa and Ranga were arrested on a train some few months later, given the death penalty in 1981, and executed a few months later in 1982, almost three and a half years after they had committed the crime.