The Last Zamindar

The Middle Overs

    When Ramakant Roy the grandfather of Prince grew up, he understood the misdeeds and the way his ancestors made this huge mansion and properties.  Being the youngest son of the three brothers he didn't have many responsibilities of maintaining their properties. He was educated and for higher education, he was sent abroad by his family. When he came back after completing his studies he did not return to the Banaras mansion, in Sripur. Instead, he took up a job in Kolkata and remained in the city. He was the first person of his family to serve in the British Company. At that point of time huge uprising against the British was going on, the demand for independence of the country was at its peak. He continued to serve the company and got married in the city itself and started living a settled life away from the place of sin by his ancestors. He didn't had any greed of the property or its part, what all he wanted was to do some good work and wash the sins made by his ancestors. For this, he was ready to redistribute his property amongst the distressed ones in the entire village of Sripur. Then came the time, India got its independence from the British rule, the British left India, the zamindari system officially ended, but the system of landless labor working under the rich landlords continued for a few more years. Then finally came some glimpse of hope when the communist government came into action in Bengal and started giving landless laborers, the land which they were working on. But the Indian political system is always full of corruption, so a young local builder who was very much influential did not let the land to be divided amongst the landless peasants.

    All the members of the Banaras mansion were too happy by the work of the influential businessman Ravanan. But back in Kolkata when Ramakant Roy came to know the incident he was deeply saddened and he started to smell something fishy about this work of Ravanan. He started to collect pieces of information about Ravanan and his motives, and in a very little time, he came to know the reality. This person Ravanan is a shrewd businessman who has started a real estate business and has an eye on this Banaras Mansion and the whole property of Sripur. He is the only person who knows about the will of the property. He wanted the whole property to be purchased at a low rate and if it goes in the hands of the peasants they won't sell the lands, but it is way to easy for the members of the Roy family to sell the land. So he used his influences to not distribute the lands amongst the peasants. On the other hand, he spread the news that the zamindar family is so influential that they are not going to abide by the newly made laws and the poor farmers were again unhappy and their impression on the zamindar family remained the same. Ravanan ignited the farmers against the family, and the thing which never happened in the past happened now. The farmers and the locals revolted against the Zamindar family and attacked the mansion. Now the security was not tight enough the locals entered the mansion and killed several members of the family. Then there was an atmosphere of unrest in the village of Sripur. The relation between the landlord and the workers was never good, and for the first time, they attacked the masters and killed their family members. Meanwhile back in Kolkata, the news disturbed the family of Ramakant Roy. But very soon the distress was over when Prince was born.