Landowner for a day

My father called me up yesterday and asked me if I could come over to his house because he had something to tell me. 

"What?" I enquired. 

The line was not very clear and I thought I heard him mumbling,"You have inherited land."

"What! Where?" I exclaimed. 

"In Bhagirathpur. But I can't talk about this over the phone. Come over as soon as you can."And he hung up. 

"Bhagirathpur," I muttered to myself. Bhagirathpur is the village of my grandparents in Bengal about 1,500 km away from Pondy,  if not more. I went there once with my mother and her distant cousin twenty years ago by means of a back-breaking bus journey, through a countryside of lush  green rice fields, stagnant ponds and little girls with sticks in hands calling out in high-pitched voices to herds of waddling ducks.  To know that I , Arunima Choudhury,  who has lived in rented apartments all my life,  own a piece of land,  be it in a remote village thousands of kilometers away , sent a shiver of pleasure coursing through my veins. 

I thought about the time I had spent there two decades ago.. We had stayed for a couple of days at my mother's cousin's place, a middle-aged man with a lovely wife and two teenage daughters. They lived in an enormous, rambling , broken down house, or rather in one portion of a conglomeration of houses bound to each other by a network of narrow alleys with mossy walls looming on either side. My uncle's portion consisted of two huge rooms, one immense courtyard and a kitchen where his wife cooked on a mud oven. The  toilet was outside, more of a huge pit than a toilet. 

In the evening there was the inevitable power cut and the flickering flames of the lanterns fought valiantly with the surrounding darkness by casting pools of dim, yellow light.  I remember sitting in the room, chatting with my cousins when the elder one told me, "Do you know this year after Durga Pooja when the idol was being carried on the boat to be immersed in the river tears coursed down her cheeks. She really did not want to leave us and go."

"No!"I exclaimed incredulously.

"Yes, "her younger sister added emphatically., "many people in the village saw her crying."

'Oh," I replied weakly. I did not want to contend with what they were saying. And somehow in the semi-obscurity of the room with the lanterns casting eerie shadows on the walls, it did not seem impossible.

My cousins took pains to show me around the village. As  I walked down the mud roads we were stopped at every street corner by curious old men sitting on the porch of their houses. "Who is she?",  they asked. "Where is she from?" The answer was she is our father's third cousin's daughter. And presto! I was slotted in their heads. "Aw, she is Rekha's daughter", or by virtue of the immense network of family connections, imprinted in their minds,  "She is Ananda's daughter, Kalipada's grand-daughter. It is to be noted that my parents were not born or brought up in the village. The questions were followed by a clinching phrase which indicated their satisfaction of having done away with my strangeness and found my rightful place in the village, " It is OUR blood which flows in her veins," they declared triumphantly. I felt like royalty, blue-blooded, my honourable ancestors kings and queens of yore. 

And now,  my father had told me,  I was landowner in Bhagirathpur. The same evening I went to see him.. "So what is it you told me over the phone? How come I own land in Bhagirathpur? How come nobody ever told me?" 

My father looked at me quizically and said, "Because you didn't own it. Your maternal great-grandfather bequeathed it  to your grandmother. When your grandmother died her children inherited the land. Your aunt and uncle have sold their portions and since your mother is dead,  you and your sister have inherited her part. It is upto you now to decide if you are going to sell it or not because a buyer has contacted us from Bhagirathpur. Your sister is willing to sell."

So in the morning I had got to know I had inherited land and in the evening I was already being solicited to sell it! Ilooked at my father blankly  and fired a series of questions:

"But why should I sell it?"

"How many acres of land?"

"What kind of land is it?"

"Who is the buyer?"

"I don't know what kind of land," my father replied," I have never seen it. I suppose it's agricultural land. It mustn't be much because the land was divided into three portions. The same buyer who bought the land from your uncle and aunt would like to buy the remaining plots."

"But I don't want to sell! " I retorted indignantly . 

"Why?" my father was astonished. "Do you plan to go and live in Bhagirathpur?"

I was stumped. I obviously did not plan to go and settle in Bhagirathpur. 

To drive the nail even further my father continued, "Anyway if you don't sell someone will come and occupy it illegally. Would you then be willing to enter into litigations?"

I could feel the sense of satisfaction of owning a piece of land in the countryside with rich, loamy soil, trees with their canopy of leaves, perhaps a pond and a broken down house thrown in as well,  leaking out of me. Before despairing completely, I asked belligerently, "How much? How much is he offering?"

"Twenty-five thousand."

"What?"I yelped.

"Yes, but don't worry. I told him that my daughters would not be willing to sell for such a low price, so he has agreed to fifty thousand."

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "But pa I wailed, here people in the countryside are selling one acre of land for fifty lakhs and even more." 

My father looked at me severely and said, "Pondicherry is Pondicherry and Bhagirathpur is Bhagirathpur. And anyway why are you being so greedy? Thank God instead for having been given this unexpected gift." 

Now I was truly silenced. I lay down my arms, blinked back my unshed tears and nodded meekly.

Afterwards back home, lying in my bed, the picture of a beautiful plot of grassy land rose before my eyes. I resentfully mumbled to myself, "However I have had the satisfaction of being landowner for a day. Nobody can take that away from me," then chuckled at the delightful irony of the situation.

Arunima