Once upon a time there was this landlord who, in his twilight years, brought in an English Memsaahib. To maintain order and control of power, the Memsaahib ensured her two stepsons via the landlord were always at loggerheads because they pursued different ideologies. The elder being more technocratic, while the younger theatrically inclined.
On a monsoon night, the ailing landlord died. Memsahib, realising that those young and restless sons wouldn’t let her rule in peace, divided the ancestral home in a jiffy along a random line that didn’t make much sense. The sons agreed without much protest because at least they were going to be masters of their own broken-down quarters.
Much luggage got smashed during the shifting between the divided rooms. Merely collateral damage.
Now this was a beautiful old-style home filled with an abundance of nature. The bone of contention was the freshwater well covered with thick foliage, placed in the middle of the lines of separation. A sliver of this well faced the younger’s part of the inheritance, and a lion’s chunk was on the elder’s side. Each of them wanting the whole.
Naturally, there were skirmishes galore, with the younger one sneaking in often and hurting the nieces and nephews with growing impunity.
Each time the elder got the better of the recalcitrant younger, the younger one would play the victim card, calling an urgent Panchayat meeting asking for a settlement.
The elder one would be urged and prevailed upon to be more understanding and generous simply because he was older and better placed. Also, because the younger one would invariably threaten that he would throw poison into the well. The fumes, of course, would sicken the whole village.
The elder one, though burning inside, would give into the pressures, looking at the ostensible bigger picture.
In this troubled scenario, there was this overseas rich cousin of the memsahib, an uncle in relation to these boys, who always implanted himself as the judge or the arbitrator. The younger son regularly sought the uncle’s say because he tended to the uncle’s local fields, did his dirty legwork and received much in charity.
Meanwhile, the elder son, watching an old classmate flourish in his import-export business, wanted to emulate him. So he invested in himself by sending his progeny to uncle’s home to learn their ways of life. Some of the progeny came back and helped the elder expand his fortunes and rise in influence. New plots, new homes—work returned to the family in batches rather than in patches.
With time, the next generation, aka the progeny’s progeny, became wiser to the ways of the world. They demanded their rightful seat at the big table of Panchayat, not settling for less. It was time their ambitions and their capabilities were recognised, and heck, they did the jobs better and at a lesser cost.
Obviously no one likes an upstart.
So the younger son was prompted to irk the elder son. Which he did by coming in and seriously harming some gambolling children. This time the entire elder clan came together as one, forgetting their internal squabbles to give the younger son a resounding slap. It seemed the ‘jugular vein’ of the conflict was within reach and up for their taking when suddenly there was a truce.
Because, as is usual, the unasked uncle waded in and shook the younger son, who then requested the older son to cease the dog fight.
Then the uncle pranced around the village as the peacekeeper.
What went on behind those closed doors? What secrets held?
The elder one chose to stop this time just when he was in the driver’s seat because old lines of conflict were redrawn. In case of any future misadventures by the younger, the well would be completely taken over, Panchayat advisory notwithstanding. The younger quietly faded into the night to repair the damages.
For now that is!
What happened next? Time will only tell.
The cynical storyteller in me thinks that the next-gen who fought across the windowsills will now (like the past) ardently pursue the younger one’s heroes and stars, dancing to their tunes, amplifying their social feeds, forgetting the foot soldiers (and their aching families) who actually saved their home.
For Art’s Sake!
Always does.
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