Horror Story: My Great Grandfather Poem by Sankhajit Bhattacharjee

Then I was 12 years old, my grandfather told me, ‘My father was a revolutionary. He broke the left leg of Pratap Roy, Zamindar of Nadia and right leg of Rana Thakur, Zamindar of Srirampur and fled away. We hardly found his trace. When the situations became normal, he appeared before us in guise of a monk'.

Pratap was cruel and Rana was ruthless. Shiv Pundit could never tolerate the humiliation and suppression of the innocent subjects. He worshipped ‘Das Kapital' for salvation and chanted Vedic Hymns in the Shiva Temple to earn his bread and butter. We were priests of the said temple for seven generations. Shiv Pundit was hardly a materialistic socialist but rather a revolutionary socialist. He led an aesthetic life during his final days.

Pratap and Rana distributed their lands among the subjects as much as they could. They became saints.

My grandfather, Vishnu Pundit, left priesthood and joined the State Transport Department. My father, Durganath Pundit, is an electrical engineer. I am reading in class IV in Howrah Zilla School. My dad wished, ‘My son will become a doctor. The Zamindars will approach to him for treatment'. But in 1951 the Zamindari System was abolished in India. The Zamindars surrendered their properties to the government.

One incident took place in my school. My classmate Ashit often threated everyone, ‘The blood of Zamindars is flowing in my vein. I will rule everyone'. One day he fell down from the stairs and broke both of his legs. He complained to the head master, Mr. Singh, ‘An old monk kicked me from the back'. ‘There is no old monk here'. That night my great grandfather appeared in my dream. ‘Revolutionaries never die, hence the revolution'. I was sweating profusely out of fear, as if he had touched me. I could not believe!

(304 words)