RIFLE RANGE BOY: Ajay Chowdhury

The Serpent (Miniseries; 2021)
Netflix-BBC

Ever since I read about Charles Sobhraj in the papers back in, probably 1976, I was fascinated with this character. Over the years, little snippets about him used to pop up here and there. Again, my interest in him was piqued when he would repeatedly outsmart his captors and make yet another dash to temporary freedom. Earlier, in one of my old posts, I mentioned someone who had named his newborn Sabhraj, not knowing the infamous icon behind the name. Now, after so many years, the child must be a teenager; I wonder if the child is cursing his parents or revelling in the glory of his cool name, securing many equally cool friends.

And then, this miniseries also reminded me of a friend who shares almost the same name as Sobhraj's sidekick as Ajay Chowdhury. Cocooned comfortably in his own sanctuary with no mobile phones and e-mails, he can be contacted via the landline. There is a problem here. He is so hard of hearing but does not believe in getting hearing aids for himself. So calling him is out of the question. He is not in the pinkest of health either, battling cancer. With all the travelling restrictions and the rage of the pandemic, giving him a visit has to wait. In his mind, not being able to hear is not his problem; it is others'.

This 8-episode miniseries starts with his time in Bangkok in 1975 by the poolside in his apartment complex. He assumes yet another pseudonym, Alain Gautier, as he entertains friends who later become victims. He professes to be a gem dealer, but his main interest is drugging travellers, robbing them of their monies and passport and dumping off their dead bodies. At a time when forensic sciences were primitive, the exchange of information was sketchy and local resources were limited, Sobhraj (aka Hotchand Bhawnani Gurumukh Charles Sobhraj @Serpent), and his accomplices, Ajay Chowdhury and Marie-Andrée Leclerc, could literally get away with murder.

Tahar Rahim
French-Algerian actor
who acted well to fit the mould of an
Indo-Franco-Vietnamese serial killer.

Through the storyteller's creative storytelling, the miniseries, through its unique way of moving to and fro between episodes, managed to paint a composite picture of Sobhraj's formative years, his earlier crimes and his relationship with his mother. Sobhraj is said to have operated in France, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, India, Thailand and Hong Kong. Besides robbery and heists, he gained notoriety primarily from his systemic enticing and killing of backpacking hippies. His modus operandi is the same - befriending white tourists through charm and warmth, poisoning them, followed by taking their passports. Sobhraj and Marie would then travel, assuming the identities of their victims to avert detection.

His crime came to light through the almost maniacal investigative work of a Dutch diplomat and his wife stationed in Bangkok, Herman Knippenberg and Angela Kane, working relentlessly with a perenially under-resourced Thai police and later the Thai chapter of the Interpol.

Sobhraj and Marie's running days came to a halt in 1976 after Sobhraj's failed attempt at poisoning a group of German students in New Delhi. He was imprisoned for 12 years. Marie was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer in prison and was extradited to Quebec to spend her remaining days. In prison, Sobhraj led a cushy life bribing the jailers. He even managed to sell his life story to a publishing house. Fearing extradition to Thailand after his time in Delhi Tihar jail, he held a big party at his 10th year of prison term, drugged the prison guard, and staged a jailbreak. He was re-apprehended in Goa and had was jailed for another 10 years as he had intended because a conviction in Thailand would mean the death penalty. Using the 20-year statute of limitation in Thailand in his favour, he walked out a free man in 1997.

Nihita Biswas - fascinated by Sobhraj's French charm!

He went back to France for a quiet life to reconnect with his first wife, daughter and his Vietnamese mother. For reasons best known to him, Sobhraj made another trip to Nepal in 2003. It was a bad mistake. A reporter identified him, wrote about him in the local papers, and the Nepali police sprang to cuff him for an old unsolved murder. He was given life imprisonment. Some say he missed being in the limelight, hence his last trip. Even in prison, he created lots of publicity. Despite the denials by the local authorities, Sobhraj lives like a Raj. In 2018, he was said to have wedded his lawyer's daughter, Nihita Biswas, a TV personality 44 years his junior.

He pops up in the news every now and then, a complaint here and an appeal to the French President there. In 2017, he underwent open-heart surgery for defective heart valves. The irony of it all coming out from the mouth of a serial murderer accused of 12 to 24 people, as quoted by the operating surgeon, Dr Raamesh Koirala, was this. When counselled on the heart valve replacement, Sobhraj is said to have said, "do whatever you think is right for me, doctor. I just want to live!”

[P.S. The whereabouts of Ajay Chowdhury is unknown. He is said to have been sent to do a gem deal in Malaysia. Unconfirmed sightings of him in Germany were made, probably untrue. He must have been killed by The Serpent.]