Amitava Dasgupta Chapter 1 High in the mist-wrapped hills of the Western Ghats, where the dense forests whispered old secrets and the air carried the tang of moss and rain-wet stone, stood the ruin of St. Thomas’s Church. The church had once served a small colonial outpost in the 1800s, built atop what locals called Kalapahad — Black Hill — a place they had always regarded with quiet dread. Now, over a century later, it was little more than a crumbling shell of stone, its bell tower broken, its arched windows gaping like blind eyes. The jungle had begun to…