(Written in the context of the place of my birth, Nainital, which died a slow death with the onslaught of Maruti cars and the rise of the Indian middle class)
The nawab of Rampur doesn’t visit this hill station for his yearly appetite of kaafal anymore, nor do his servants pursue their love interests with local girls every summer now. Mrs Willingdon, while snoozing on a chair under the sun one day, tripped and fell off the stairs of her little house on Alma Hill. She was trying to chase langoors away, or so they say. Or was it because she was helping her Indian lover escape through the iron fence? Nobody knows. Nobody ever will. They won’t because these scandals are a part of history now and nobody, not even the kids from the sweeper colony of Tallital Bazaar, have the appetite for such stories. They’re busy streaming salman khan videos on their phones.
Storytellers are dying. Stories are dying. Story carriers are dying.
Winter's Child 