Ranjeet Pratap lived alone in his mansion, looked after by some helpers, who took care of his land as well. Ranveer, his only son, who was a senior government officer, could not pay attention to works related to land. He was posted in a nearby town but could not visit his father much even after he had fallen ill around a year ago. His father remained hospitalised for over a fortnight, he survived and returned to his village, but he could not recover. Ranveer brought his father to the town to tend him. It did not work out for long.
The old landlord had never been at ease with his daughter-in-law. They didn't engage in any head-on duel for the record, but an unspoken enmity always existed. In reality, it was a war of supremacy: discerned and dealt with by the two of them, though they never admitted it publicly.
Ranjeet Pratap was a reputed man in the village. In a crisis, people looked up to him for aid and advice. And his decisions were binding on the people when they approached him to resolve a dispute. Ironically, on the family front, it was his daughter-in-law who lorded over everything. For both her husband and the son, her command was supreme. She coerced them to agree to her wishes, even when she knew that the old-man could be against them. And Ranjeet Pratap virtually succumbed to his son's decisions, though he tried to throw his weight around creating melodrama half-heartedly. Daughter-in-law Leela knew that her husband was the landlord's weakness.
At his son's house in the town during his illness, Ranjeet Pratap's aversion for his daughter-in-law grew exponentially. He thought she pitied his frailty, which made him irritable, and gradually he lost his senses. One night he tried to run away from the house, a neighbour spotted him scaling the boundary wall and raised the alarm. Next morning, Ranveer Pratap packed him off to the village. The old-man felt relieved, away from the constant watch of his daughter-in-law, but his health continued to deteriorate. Leela and Ranveer made even fewer visits to the village. Ranjeet Pratap had stopped expecting anything from his family. In his last days, he had begun cursing them, what the villagers called a sign of lunacy.
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Grandfather
Short StoryThis is a short story about a doting grandfather who had high hopes from his grandson after his son failed to achieve much in his life, about their bonding and the bitter realities of life which affected their relationship.
