Chanakyan's love

One

Gowthami

"Could you guys please keep it down!" I shout as I lower half the stairs that lead to the living room. "I have an important exam tomorrow!" I say to my father with a slight glare.

In the huge, spaciously, and traditionally built living room was my father and his goons, beating up a random guy whose shirt is bloody, and he's forced down on the ground by my father's right hand, Chanakyan.

Upon noticing my presence, he looks up at me blankly while I stare back at him with disgust. I despise violence but being born in this house as the daughter of a significant person in this Village, I've been used to these scenarios since I was young.

Father has tons of enemies and he, himself isn't a morally good man either. He has killed people, bad people, and still does that with the help of Chanakyan. Our remote Village gets little to no police supervision and hence, my father easily gets away with murdering people.

"Cover his mouth and hit him," my father asserts casually to Chanakyan and he wraps a towel around the guy's mouth before starting to beat him to a pulp. I watch the scene unfold with a sickening look on my countenance and move away eventually. I always wonder how my mom fell in love with my Father who is known for his unforgiving nature?

My grandfather passed his title of Village head to my father upon his death when I was five years old. Father was never interested in taking up this position and he's an unruly and fierce man. Meanwhile, my mother is from a very poor family, and due to that ground, my grandpa was against their love. However, Father was adamant in marrying Mother and brought her to our home after tying the nuptial chain around her neck in a temple.

Grandfather couldn't do anything henceforth and had to accept his new daughter-in-law. Mother narrates this story to me repeatedly and keeps praising Father. I don't know how she bears to look past all his atrocities and love him dearly?

My mother is the type to ask her husband If he's alright while he is visibly killing a random guy. Yes, that would best explain her personality.

She's as unremorseful as my Father and they truly are made for each other.

Yet somehow I grew up a bit different. Or maybe not so much. I do loathe this gore I'm forced to watch every day but it doesn't really affect me. I'm used to it and it made me quite bold.

Anyway, I've to focus on my studies now. I'm pursuing the first year of Msc chemistry course and we've an exam tomorrow. There are only government schools in our Village and for higher studies, we've to travel to the town. Many commute by bus but I've been strictly prohibited from using any public transportation by my father...

Well, there's a reason.

Some idiotic guys wouldn't leave me alone and once Father came to know this, he beat up the guys and arranged a car for me to attend the college.

And so, here I am, twenty-one years old, focusing on my studies amidst the chaos that happens in my house every day. Also, my father is in search of a groom for me but there are just too many enemies of Father that he's very paranoid about marrying me off.

Hence my Father is looking for a guy who would stay in our house and also would be willing and capable of being the successor of his position. My mother had complications in her first pregnancy itself and so she wasn't able to conceive for the second time. But there are my father's younger brother's sons who have the right to be the Village head after him but they are settled abroad. Hence my future husband is the only one who can inherit my father's stance as the Village head.

Well, my life is settled then.

Complete my studies, marry a guy, stay in my own home, and go to a job If I wish to. Though I don't like the cruelty of the people I'm surrounded by, I'm not better off than any of them and I'm really grateful for all the love, comfort, amenities, and wealth I'm offered. I wouldn't trade this lifestyle for anything.

I love living here. The enticing beauty of the greeneries, callous trees, unpolluted rivers, traditional houses, and simple-minded people are some qualities among the various things I adore in my Village.
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