The Gunslinger is a central figure in the fascinating Tees Maar Khan legend known for bravery and wit.
Episode One: The Birth of the Gunslinger
Unlike Abhimanyu, who learned the labyrinth of war within the womb, this child entered the world already awake to combat. In the womb, he kicked and boxed without knowing he was using his mom as a boxing bag. She used to say, “Mua mannda hi nahin, ae toh meri jaan na bakhe ga.” With these proud sentiments, the hero was certain to be born prematurely. He farted strongly after one session of boxing, and hence the birth process started. With one eye opened at birth, he measured his infant biceps as if to test his destiny.
From childhood he struck and sparred: fists like hammers, feet like flails. His trapezius swelled, his chest broadened, and his abdomen split into eight gleaming ridges of strength. But even the mightiest child is reminded of frailty. An inguinal hernia mocked his early power — a scar of weakness to temper his pride.
Fate, amused, drew him not to the battlefield but to the halls of pathology. There, he battled with microscopes and ruled over slides of tissue. Yet destiny is restless. Like all heroes, he was fond of travelling and adventuring. Adventure had a bad habit of finding him to test his heroism. But alas, he landed a job as a pathologist. The maximum adrenaline lay in cleaning the compound microscope and peering at tissue samples. On a rare day, he performed an autopsy.
Here he was in hot, dusty Rajasthan. He was cleaning his microscope. An irritating swarm of flies sat on his trousers. They sang in his ears and tried to enter his nose. In irritation, he gave a mighty jerk to the wiper cloth. Lo, so many flies lay dead. Some were dying, and some were crippled.
He counted all of them, and they were thirty dead and sixty wounded. There and then, he knew that thirty dead in one shot was not a fluke; it was a message to go forth and travel. Master of Slides no more, tester of his free wandering spirit, and an adventurer henceforth.
Episode One-and-a-Half: The Mountain Encounter
He took up a sturdy stick, slung across his shoulder a cloth bag of humble provisions, and strode to the gate. At once, the household rose in alarm.
His mama cried, “Where are you going?”
His sister echoed, “Where are you going?”
And his father, with the weary wisdom of experience, added only: “Don’t go to the town with a gun.”
Our hero paused, looked back, and gave them a smile that was both assurance and mystery. For he knew that his journey was not toward the town, nor toward the gun—but straight into the waiting arms of destiny.
Carrying only a stick, a bag, and a hidden gun, he set forth. Warnings trailed him, but he pressed into the wild. Under a Keekar tree, he rescued a small bird from the dense thorny foliage and hid it within his pack — mercy beside might.
At a mountain pass, a giant blocked his way.
“Pay toll or forfeit your bag,” the man growled, hurling a boulder high into the air.
The youth flexed his eight-pack, but chose wit over weight. From his bag he cast the small bird. It flew farther than stone, beyond the giant’s reach. The giant’s pride broke like shale. Defeated, he surrendered his gold. The hero walked on richer — not in coin alone, but in reputation.
Episode Two: The River and the Crown
Upon his head, he placed a crown of wheat — humble yet radiant. His march carried him to Hayuliang, where the Lohit River roared in braids of silver and stone.
There, black-backed marlins flashed like ebony shields beneath the sun. With one stroke he struck a marlin from the torrent. The villagers beheld this miracle and bent low in reverence. They offered him their daughters; he chose the princess.
The old king, weary and near his dusk, summoned him:
“I am frail and infirm. I awaited a gunslinger such as you. Accept my throne, and carry our name beyond these hills.”
Thus, the wanderer became a ruler. The boxer became a king. He bore not only gold and bride, but the weight of destiny at the edge of the Eastern Himalayas.
Episode Three: The Monsters of the Opium Fields
In Hayuliang, fields of cardamom breathed their perfume, while the poppy swayed heavy with opium. Wealth flowed like honey into the kingdom, and the people no longer hungered for toil. The Hero-King could have rested in plenty, but adventure has wings, and it sought him out as hawks seek prey.
For in one field of opium dwelt two monsters — hideous giants who smoked by day and feasted by night. Neither iron nor stone could wound them, for their skins were as hard as the mountain’s root. To them, nothing was sacred. Cow or crow, goat or man, every living thing was torn apart and devoured. Their appetite was so insatiable that the villagers, trembling with despair, had adopted a grim custom: each season, they sent forth the frailest and weakest youth, a living sacrifice to appease the monsters’ hunger.
This was the matter brought before the Hero-King. The court filled with lamentation, mothers weeping, fathers silent. The princess herself lowered her eyes, ashamed that her people lived in fear.
The Hero rose and spoke, his voice ringing like steel upon stone:
“Not for nothing was I called Tees Maar Khan! Thirty fell at a stroke when I was but a boy. This challenge, too, shall find its end beneath my hand.”
The courtiers bowed low, murmuring in awe, “Thirty in One Blow! Thirty in One Blow!”
And so the Hero set forth toward the cursed fields, where the smoke of opium curled like dragons above the earth, and where the two flesh-eaters waited for their nightly feast.
Episode Three (continued): The Potato Stratagem
The Hero, now known among his people as the Gunslinger, strode to the cursed fields where the poppies swayed blood-red in the moonlight. The air was thick with smoke, for the monsters never let their pipes grow cold. Their eyes glowed like coals, their bellies rumbled like drums.
From the shadows he watched as they muttered:
“Tonight’s meat shall be tender. The villagers will bring the weakest lamb to us.”
They licked their lips, teeth flashing in the dark.
But no villager came. Only silence, and the rustle of camphor leaves.
The Gunslinger had climbed a keekar tree at the edge of the field. In his hand he held not sword nor spear, but a round, earthy thing dug from the soil of Hayuliang — a potato, starchy and strange, unknown to the monsters.
When the larger of the two beasts yawned, he hurled it down. It struck the giant’s forehead with a solid thunk.
The beast roared in rage, clutching at his brow.
“You struck me, brother!” he bellowed.
The other snarled back, “I did no such thing, but you cuffed me in the smoke!”
Thus began their quarrel, fists like boulders swinging, tusks snapping. The poppies trembled, their stalks breaking beneath the fury. The Gunslinger, hidden in his tree, laughed softly and threw another potato. It landed on the smaller one’s shoulder.
“Now you mock me twice!” the smaller shrieked, and leapt upon his companion.
Through the long night they fought, troll against troll, egged on by the Gunslinger’s whispered taunts and unseen missiles. By dawn, the field was strewn with wreckage. The monsters lay broken, spent by their own violence, the opium pipes shattered at their side.
The Hero climbed down, brushing the dust from his crown of wheat. He struck the ground with his stick and proclaimed:
“Let this land be free of fear. Let potatoes, not flesh, feed the people!”
The villagers rushed forth at sunrise, astonished to find the terror ended by such humble cunning. They bowed and cried once more:
“Tees Maar Khan! Thirty in one blow — and now two by the power of a potato!”
Episode Four: The Ambassador and the Unfired Shot
The Hero-King, now beloved by his people, ruled with a benevolent hand. The opium fields were replaced with sprawling terraces of potatoes. The only monstrous sounds heard in the valleys were the snores of well-fed children. His reign was one of peace, but peace is often a tempting prize for those with ambition.
One season, a grand procession arrived from the north. An ambassador and a champion warrior came from the court of the Supreme Emperor in China. They were followed by a retinue of silk-clad soldiers. They did not come with gifts, but with a demand.
“The Son of Heaven, the Supreme Emperor in Beijing, has taken notice of this small, prosperous kingdom,” the ambassador announced, his voice thin and sharp. “You will pay an annual tribute of gold and grain to show your fealty. Or, your champion—if you have one—can face ours in a duel to the death to settle the matter of ownership.”
The Gunslinger, seated on his simple throne, smiled faintly. “Beijing? A grand city. In my youth, we called it Peking.”
The ambassador’s face tightened. “Peking was a name used by Western hegemonists,” he snapped. “The city’s proper name is Beijing.”
The King leaned forward, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “Ah, I see. The sound has softened from a ‘p’ to a ‘b’. A small tempest between two lips. Tell me, ambassador, in your great city, has the humble pao also become a bao?”
A gasp went through the court. The warrior beside the ambassador bristled, his hand falling to the hilt of his sword. To mock the name of the capital was insult enough, but to follow it with a pun was unforgivable.
“You have made your choice,” the ambassador hissed. “A duel it is. Name your weapon.”
The King stood. “We will not use swords. This is a modern age. We will use pistols.”
And so it was arranged. In a clearing by the Lohit river, a table was placed with two gleaming pistols. The King and the Chinese warrior stood back-to-back. They would walk ten paces, turn, and fire.
They walked. The count echoed in the mountain air. On the tenth step, they turned. The warrior, eager for glory, snatched his pistol and fired in a single, fluid motion.
But his target was not there. The King, a right-handed man, had to bend at the waist to properly grasp his weapon from the table. The bullet whistled harmlessly over his stooped back.
Silence fell. The warrior stood frozen, his pistol smoking and empty. The Gunslinger slowly straightened, the unfired gun now held calmly in his hand. He aimed it directly at the warrior’s heart.
The ambassador fell to his knees. “Mercy!”
The King held his aim for a long moment, then slowly lowered the gun.
“Hayuliang does not kill envoys, however rude they may be,” he declared, his voice ringing with authority. “Take your life as a gift. And take this message back to your Emperor: my kingdom does not bow, and my aim is better than my opponent’s.”
Epilogue: The Final Echo
The delegation departed in shame. The pistol was placed in the royal treasury. It became a symbol of a victory won without shedding blood.
Decades passed like seasons in the valley. The King ruled with wisdom. His hair turned the color of snow on the high peaks. However, his eyes remained sharp. The world outside changed, empires rose and fell, but Hayuliang remained a land of peace. The gun, the fabled weapon from the duel, was never fired.
Then, in the autumn of 1962, the rumble of war finally reached the Eastern Himalayas. The armies of China crossed the border, and the quiet hillsides echoed with the sounds of conflict.
The old King, now a figure of legend to his own people, watched from a high pass. He saw the invaders advance, the same prideful threat from a lifetime ago, now multiplied a thousandfold.
The Chinese forces began a tactical retreat as a ceasefire was announced. They remained wary. They listened for any sign of renewed Indian resistance. It was then that the Gunslinger took up his pistol one last time. He was not aiming at a man, but at a memory.
A single, deafening CRACK echoed through the canyons.
The Chinese commanders, hearing the lone, defiant shot from deep within the mountains, believed it was the spark of a fierce, organized guerilla force preparing to strike. Their withdrawal hastened.
With the first and final shot from the Gunslinger’s gun, the reign of Tees Maar Khan ended. It was a glorious reign. He had defended his people one last time. Having fulfilled his destiny, he faded from the world of men into the mists of legend.
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