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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/BuddhaTheGreat on 2024-09-23 16:13:41+00:00.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about or where I am, you should read my last post.
Perhaps I judged this place too harshly. It turns out that they have finally gotten around to getting a cell tower up here, so I do have reception. Typically, it’s extremely spotty, but hey, at least it’s there. I am going to write and put up these posts as and when I have the time, so don’t try and measure the gaps between them to create a timeline. It won’t work.
Anyway, I should probably start from where I left off last time. By the time the bus was pulling into Chhayagarh, I was the only passenger left. No, some horrible monstrosity did not attack us and kill them off. They just got down at their own stops like usual.
You must understand that people from the outside can and do visit our village. It’s just incredibly difficult. It does not appear on any official map. No travel guides about it exist anywhere. The only symbol of the Indian government in the entire area is the police station, and it’s completely staffed by local officers; I’m pretty sure the district superintendent doesn’t even know it exists. If you try to catch transport from any of the major cities, no one is going to know where it is. Pretty much the only way to get here is to ask for directions in some of the neighbouring villages. Some of the people there, especially the old ones, may be able to guide you to the right buses and roads. Curiously, people who have visited once never have any trouble finding their way back again, but most never do. It’s a pretty boring place.
If you do manage to find your way here, you’ll be greeted by the same rusty iron board that I saw, scrawled over with barely legible writing in English, Hindi, and Bengali, right before the bus dumps you in front of the two naked concrete pillars that qualify as the village stop.
“Dear visitors, Chhayagarh is more dangerous than it appears. Do not speak to strange people. Do not go to the forest. Do not leave your dwelling at night. If you see anything strange, inform the police station immediately. We are glad to have you as our guests.
—Chhayagarh Gram Panchayat”
Wonderful, given that I was as much of a stranger here as the occasional German vlogger who stumbled in. Instead of driving off after fetching my suitcases from the luggage carrier overhead, the bus driver parked his vehicle off to the side and casually ambled over to the small tin-and-wood tea shop helpfully placed immediately across the road from the stop.
Standing on the outskirts, I realized my predicament too late: in my rush to get here, I had forgotten to call ahead on the landline. The family had no idea I was here. Therefore, I had no transport to the manor. On top of that, it was the zenith of noon, and the sweltering road threatened to melt my shoes. Having little other choice, I slowly followed the driver to the welcoming shade of the shop. The front had been extended into a corrugated tin awning, with several wooden benches underneath forming a makeshift seating area. Here, the both of us almost unconsciously settled in next to each other. The driver raised a finger to the old man manning the shop, who quickly brought over an earthen cup brimming with milk tea and two cheap biscuits.
“And for you, babu?”
It was too hot for tea, so I asked him if he had water. He did, and I ate two extremely dry biscuits of my own between gulps.
“People don’t come here often, to this village. Especially not from the city.”
The driver’s voice was level and rich, unnaturally posh for someone with his rough, everyman appearance. I paused before deciding to ignore it. There had been enough strangeness already.
“No. No, I suppose they don’t.” I took another sip of the water.
He looked at me for a good few seconds, over the rim of his cup, and I could have sworn I saw stars dimly twinkling in them again.
“Tourist? Or are you some sort of salesman?”
“Neither. Just some… family business.” No way he needed to know more than that.
In the first place, it was odd to have to strike up a conversation with your bus driver. They were supposed to be liminal beings, taking you where you needed to go and then disappearing. This just felt wrong, like seeing your middle school teacher at the mall.
“I see. Family is good. One must take care of their family.” The driver nodded solemnly, finishing his tea and smashing the cup on the ground. “Do you smoke?”
“Uh… No, thanks.”
“I don’t either.” He glared straight into my eyes again, pupils expanding until I was looking into dark abysses. “I like quick deaths. Slow ones are boring.”
The air turned heavy and brittle, like something was about to happen. His eyes seemed to swirl like whirlpools as I looked into them. The effect was almost hypnotizing. A strange, dull cold began to deaden the tips of my fingers, slowly radiating upward into my palms, and then my arms. My eyelids grew heavy and drowsy. All I wanted was to go to sleep, but I was startled out of my stupor by a loud clang. The shopkeeper had placed the kettle a little too roughly on the stove.
When I glanced back, the driver’s eyes were back to normal. He sighed and got to his feet, walking around under the shade to stretch his legs.
It took a while to find my voice again. “Don’t you need to, you know… go back?”
“No. Not yet. The route timings are very spaced out. I spend a few hours here every time.” He nodded at the back of the shop, where a small ramshackle shed was leaning against the wall. “He lets me sleep in there sometimes.”
“Are you a local?”
“No, but I visit often.” He looked over to where his bus was parked. “Obviously.”
Right. I had very little interest in continuing this conversation, especially given what had just happened. Instead, I gulped down the last of the water and began looking around for a bin to throw the bottle in. The shopkeeper waved me over.
“Give me the bottle, babu.”
He tossed it into a green plastic bag behind him. “I send them for recycling with the bus every night. It’s good money, though he keeps some of it.”
“I see.”
“Would you like some tea now? I put on a fresh kettle.”
“Oh, no, not for me. Thanks.”
Then he leaned in conspiratorially and asked me the fateful question that every outsider must face in any village in India.
“Kiske yaha se hai aap?”
Whose house are you from?
Well, what he was really asking is how I knew people here. In other words, my family. Also, he spoke in Hindi. So, he was not a Bengali. That did not surprise me. There are plenty of people from other states here, mostly migrants in search of jobs. Ram Lal, our manservant, was from Bihar, though his ancestors had moved to Chhayagarh a long time ago.
“Birendra Thakur,” I answered, using my grandfather’s formal name.
As soon as he heard this, the shopkeeper, who must have been at least twenty years older than me, jumped out from behind the shop and bent to touch my feet. I recoiled instinctively, practically jumping backwards to stop him.
He looked up at me, still squatting on the ground. “Thakur! The little Thakur! How you have grown! It has been so long since you last came to the village!”
I grabbed his shoulders and practically hoisted him to his feet. “Please get up, and don’t touch my feet. I’m practically your son.”
Oh, yeah, I should probably mention this. Like all good feudal lords, the men in our family are given two names: a personal name at birth, and a ‘formal’ name at puberty. Yes, I also have one. No, I won’t be revealing it. Not yet, anyway. Also, Thakur is just an honorific we use, like ‘lord’. It’s more common than you think. Rabindranath Tagore? The poet guy? ‘Tagore’ is just a bastardized spelling of ‘Thakur’.
After hesitating, he opted to merely fold his hands together. “Thakur, I have seen you when you were a boy. You used to buy sweets from my shop whenever you visited.”
Maybe that was true. I barely remember my trips here.
“You don’t need to call me that.”
“After your grandfather passed…” He touched his head in a reverent gesture. “Birendra Thakur treated us like his own children. We heard about your father too. The gods have given you much grief. But the village is yours now, Thakur. Now that you are here, everything will be all right.” He paused. “But why are you here? You need to go to the manor! One vakil babu came to the village a few days ago, and I heard he was waiting for you.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m just looking for a way there. Is there an autorickshaw or something I can take?”
“A few farmers pass by here. But you cannot travel by bullock cart, Thakur! It’s unthinkable!”
I raised my hands to placate him. The change in demeanour was threatening to give me a whiplash injury. “I’ll manage.”
“Nonsense!” He turned to the back of the shop and shouted, “Ramu! Ramu! Come here!”
A young, well-built man came jogging around the back of the building. After a brief introduction, during which he also promptly tried to fall at my feet, Ramu pulled his trusty bike out of the shed, and we set off for the house.
Ramu was the shopkeeper’s son, and about a year younger than me. He worked with his father in the shop, and during harvest season, he helped in the fields. Like his father, he also had a deep, totally unearned reverence for me, refusing to call m...
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