Begusarai - The saga continue

057

The winter night was thick with silence, its cold bite clawing into bones. Above, crows circled in an omen-laden sky, their dark silhouettes slicing through the clouds like harbingers of doom.

Below, the quiet was shattered only by the crackling of a lone fire, casting a flickering glow that stretched shadows into shapes both haunting and monstrous.

Around this fire, a congregation of men stood, huddled close in dark anticipation. Their voices were low and conspiratorial, murmuring plans soaked in bloodlust and vengeance.

The corner held sacks heavy with bullets, alongside knives and other implements of death that gleamed under the fire's sporadic light, each weapon waiting to fulfill its purpose.

In their midst stood Pandit, but gone was the holy guise he once wore. The robes of a hermit had long been cast aside, the man now an embodiment of wrath.

His hair was twisted into a severe bun atop his head, giving him the air of a warrior from another age. A thick, black tilak streaked across his forehead like a war mark, while strings of rudraksh beads adorned his neck and arms.

His torso lay bare, exposing a muscled frame bearing the scars of battles fought and betrayals suffered. A black dhoti wrapped tightly around his midriff, he stood as an effigy of vengeance.

This was Pandit as he had been once, before he went into hiding, before he became a ghost in the night world. Years ago, they had whispered of him with fear, calling him the god of death, Yamraj, a name spoken with reverence and terror.

Tomorrow, he would become that legend once more.

The call had come only two hours before, a signal that the time had come. Tomorrow, the Chaudharys would pay for their crimes, their legacy reduced to ashes.

Women, men, children-Pandit had given the command. No one would be spared.

Tomorrow, as Begusarai celebrated Maha Shivratri, Pandit would be bringing his own dark celebration-the Tandava of death, a dance as merciless and consuming as the god of destruction himself.

And on that night of Tandava, the Chaudharys would be the chosen sacrifices.

But there was one, Pandit thought, who would be last-Phoolan Chaudhary. His death would be slow, deliberate, each breath dragged out and laced with agony.

Phoolan would watch his family fall one by one, his kin slaughtered, his power shattered. Only when Pandit had enough of his suffering would he allow him to die.

Pandit's hand drifted to his prosthetic leg, his fingers trailing over the cold surface.

Beneath the false limb, a memory burned-an old wound that seemed to ache more acutely tonight, as if his body remembered the day Phoolan had severed his leg.

He could still feel the searing pain, the helplessness that had swallowed him as his own blood stained the earth. And tomorrow, Pandit would repay that suffering a hundredfold.

The plan was as simple as it was brutal. Phoolan's daughter would be the first. Pandit envisioned her screams, each severed limb serving as an offering to his vengeance.

He would soak his hands in the blood of Phoolan's sons-strong, proud boys, he imagined with relish. They would fall easily, their strength no match for his wrath.

Then there was Durga Devi, the matriarch. She was the heart of the Chaudhary family, a fierce woman known throughout Begusarai as the keeper of their honor.

She would be broken last, her death an echo of the agony she had witnessed.

The Chaudharys' beacon would be snuffed out, and Begusarai would be left to cower in the darkness.