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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/BuddhaTheGreat on 2024-11-05 05:57:16+00:00.

Find all the parts of my experience in this index on my dedicated subreddit.

Okay, I think this needs a bit more context. You wouldn’t know it if you saw me walk down the street, but my family owns a village. This village is somewhere in Bengal, but I won’t tell you where for reasons that will quickly become clear. My ancestors were given the zamindari, or feudal rights, over the settlement by the Pala kings all the way back in the 11th century. Yes, it’s been a heck of a long time. What did we do to deserve this honour, you ask?

Well, there isn’t a simple answer to that. Kings used to give away lands and villages for practically anything back in the day, from marrying the princess to curing the prince of an illness to bringing over the neighbouring king’s head. I haven’t had the time or the inclination to rifle through what little family chronicles have survived to find out which one we did. I live miles away from that place anyway, in Kolkata. My father left the ancestral manor in the care of my grandfather and his brothers and moved away with his family when I was barely learning to open my eyes. Since then, I have only visited Chhayagarh a total of five times. That’s the name of the village, by the way. Chhayagarh.

The last time I visited the village, I was ten years old. My father was still alive then. My memories are dim, given that it was more than a decade ago, but I remember the important details. I remember my grandfather’s glowing face as he sunned himself in his recliner, watching me play with the weeds in the courtyard. I remember his hefty walking stick, and enjoying the loud clacks it made as he walked around the corridors. I remember Ram Lal, the manservant, chasing me around the backyard to force me into taking a bath. I remember my grandmother’s delicious cooking on my tongue.

I remember other things too. The pale lady in a white sari, smiling at me from the parapet of the boundary wall. The unnaturally tall man whispering to my grandfather in his study, his broad-brimmed hat scraping the ceiling. He had turned briefly to smile at me; his face had nothing on it save the grinning mouth. I remember the shaggy thing I used to play fetch with near the family grove, built like a dog but not quite. I remember my father sending me back to my room with a harsh noise, old rifle in hand, before joining a small group of villagers with flaming torches and wooden staves at the front gate at midnight.

There is something off about Chhayagarh. I can’t find a better way to explain it. It is a normal village, with all the trappings you would expect: playing children, women with water pots, charming little trees and huts. But alongside that world, there is another world that lives there. A world many of us would rather not acknowledge. That world was somehow centred around us. Each time my father took us there, something was always happening: villagers filtering in and out to confer with the family, mounds of dusty books and manuscripts lying open on tables, weapons being brought out and maintained. Each of these buildups would inevitably have a climax: a loud struggle at midnight, gunshots in the forest, a massive ritual bonfire in the atrium, or something similar. I never saw these climaxes; everyone made sure to give me a wide berth whenever funny business was involved. After everything was over, my father would pack us up, and we would be back in Kolkata, none the worse for the wear.

The last time we went there, it was different. I was too young to ask questions, but something went wrong. That night, my father returned three hours later, his face white as a sheet. He was alone and without his gun. He said nothing, he did nothing. He merely went into a room with my mother and my grandfather, and closed the door. Fifteen minutes later, my mother came to put me to bed as usual. I am pretty sure she said nothing out of the ordinary, but there were streaks of tears running down her face. The next morning, we packed our bags and returned to Kolkata.

Two days later, there was an accident. Thirty cars piled up on the road. Only one casualty. Even at the cremation, my mother said nothing. She only cried silently as she handed me the torch and let me burn my father’s mangled corpse to ashes. We haven’t been back to Chhayagarh since. In fact, she has actively kept me away from visiting, despite more than a hundred letters from my grandparents (old-fashioned people; apparently, they never could figure the telephone out).

Not that I’m complaining. Without the rose-tinted glasses of childhood, it was kind of a shitty place anyway. The land was dry and hard, and the villagers struggled to farm in the best of weather. The water table was deep and stony, and the nearest well was over two miles from the manor; the servants had the near-constant duty of running pots of water to the house for cooking and cleaning. I’m pretty sure there still isn’t a mobile tower, bank, or post office in the entire block. In hindsight, the only thing that made it worth it was the pure joy on my grandfather’s face whenever he saw us. But that can only take you so far.

My life in Kolkata is good. I just finished my law degree, and a career in litigation looks to be on track, though my senior still insists that five thousand rupees is plenty of money to live on for a month. I’m not sure he has purchased anything since the fifties. My mother is running a successful interior decoration business, so that helps with the finances. My father also left behind a decent estate, and for all our neglect, my grandparents do not skimp on sending over the revenue from the property. I dimly knew that I was going to come into the zamindari eventually, given that my father was no longer in the picture, but it was not something I really thought about. In any case, I was planning to pawn the damn place off to the first feudal enthusiast I met with more money than sense. Chhayagarh did not feature in my top fifty priorities list.

Until yesterday. This time, the letter that came did not bear my grandfather’s characteristically elegant handwriting on the envelope. It was the harsh, angular script of a lawyer, just in case the starched brown envelope did not make the official nature of the communication clear enough. Apparently, our family has an estate manager.

He was writing to tell me that my grandfather was dead. There were no details as to how, just strict business: in accordance with ordinary rules of succession, the zamindari should devolve to one of my uncles, but my grandfather had made his wishes clear. The family customs had to be followed. The land and the village must pass to his firstborn son, my father, and through him to his firstborn son. Me.

He had also insisted that I come to the village immediately, and take charge of the manor and the surrounding properties. The estate lawyer would meet me there and hand over some articles he had bequeathed to me. I had sole and absolute ownership over the ancestral house, but he had requested that I allow my grandmother, my uncles, and their families to continue their residence on the premises and take care of their needs.

When I showed my mother the letter, I was expecting she would say what was already on my mind: toss the letter in the bin, surrender the property to some relative or, failing that, the government, and go on with my life in peace.

Instead, she sighed, put the letter face down on the table, and asked, “When are you leaving?”

“What?” was all I could say.

“Chhayagarh. When are you going over to take possession?”

“Mom. Are you serious? That place is a dump. I have no interest in roleplaying a medieval landlord in some godforsaken hamlet in the middle of nowhere. I have a career here. We have a business here!”

She sighed. “I wish I could have kept you here forever, but I can’t. You have to go. Our family must take up the mantle. It is our duty to Chhayagarh, to our ancestors, to ourselves. Go.”

I paused. “That place killed my father. I’m not going. I’m going to write to the lawyer, and—”

“Chhayagarh killed your father. And it killed your grandfather.”

“Grandfather? How can you be so sure?”

“It killed him, just as it has killed many of your ancestors before him. I know it, somewhere inside me. Just as your father knew, that day. He knew he was going to die. He could not keep winning. But he did his duty. Just as you will. Because if you don’t, Chhayagarh will kill many more.”

I leaned forward and grasper her hands in my own. “Mom… You’re not telling me something. What do you know?”

“Not enough. Only they can explain it to you. Those who have lived on the land, and worked with it. But I know this. There was a reason your family, our family, was given that land. No, a reason they were placed upon that land. It wasn’t wealth, or favour, or martial skill that won us Chhayagarh. It was something else. Something to do with… them. The others. You know of what I speak.” Her hands trembled in mine. “You must go.”

She would say no more after this, only insisting that I go, and that all will be clear once I reach the manor and take over affairs. I will be frank. After this conversation, my desire to go to Chhayagarh had only lessened. But right now, I am in a rattling bus, travelling through t…

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