Piyali Banik Part 1 Misty winds curled around the crumbling eaves of the ancient monastery perched on the edge of Darjeeling’s high cliffs. It had stood there for over three centuries, cloaked in silence and stories—some whispered, some buried. To the tourists who visited, the monastery offered serenity, a glimpse of the spiritual. But to the monks within, and the locals who dared to speak of it, the place carried shadows. Shadows of the past. Shadows of something that refused to rest. Dr. Ayaan Mukherjee, a young anthropologist from Kolkata University, arrived at the monastery to study Buddhist rituals and…
