...he pulled a gun at us

The day we started the construction, the neighbour came over and said that a good part of our land belonged to him and started raising objection to our boundary wall construction. He asked us to stop the work and leave. This was an shocking to me because even after complete registration with authorities someone had the audacity to walk and claim our land to be theirs. I was so angry that I wanted to kill him but when i looked at my father, he was so calm and composed that I realize that this is the time to act mature.

On further conversation, we found out that the drainage system from his house drained water on our land, which would get blocked if we went ahead with construction. We told him that we would create a sump for collecting the drainage water from his house. However, he was adamant and insisted that we couldn’t proceed with any construction. However, he didn't back out and threatened us.

My brother and I were very disturbed by this incident that next day we contacted a goon of the area (who later was elected as member of Legislative assembly from our district, thanks to red taping and corrupt bureaucracy). He suggested us that in exchange for 10000/- rupees, he could bring 30-40 people to pelt stones at this person's house and ensure that the construction at our site happened smoothly. My brother and I were in a fix because the amount of too big for us to manage on our own and we knew that our father would never approve of this tactic.

After a lot of deliberation we decided to go for a different, less rowdy approach of reaching out to white collar officials to resolve this deadlock. First, we went to the police station to lodge a complaint but to our utter shock, police told us that this land belonged to him. Upon more investigation, we found that the local councilor of the area was an ally of this neighbour and that's how he pulled the strings. But we 3 stood together and showed our registry documents.

Police imposed section 144 , which meant that no party could claim the land until the right owner was decided by a court of law. The matter went to court. We submitted the registration papers, sales deed; the other party also submitted papers to prove that the land belonged to them. Their claim was that the land was given by some Mughal Badshah as a gift to this fellow’s forefathers and he presented a document written in Urdu. I went to meet the seller of the land to discuss about these proceedings and asked him if it were true. Even he was shocked and told us that he would speak to the court magistrate.

Those days, we trusted no body because every other person tried to instill fear in us. It wouldn't be a big surprise had the judge ruled out against us because bribery was deeply rooted in layers. So, we thought, why don't we make the first move this time and try to tip the scale in our favor. We went to magistrate's house with sweets and a 500 rupee note, but strangely he did not accept anything. The next day we went to the court where magistrate's office was located. While waiting for our turn to go into his chambers we noticed that his peon was staring us in a weird manner. I went close to him and heard him mumble the words, "sahab ka khata idhar hai". My father promptly took the same 500 rupee note out of his pocket and within few minutes, we were allowed to go inside. Magistrate asked us all details once again (as if he never heard any of it earlier) and submitted all the necessary documents along with police report.

He extended his hands to pick a file from this old wooden table and it read: "Land dispute File No. 34A". He said, "Padhlo aur samajhlo" (Read and understand). I started reading the report and to my surprise it was drafted already in our favor. Though there were many mistakes in the report, especially around demarcation of the land. I asked him humbly if I could correct the information, and he agreed. I made the corrections and handed over the revised draft to him. So, not only did I read the entire order that was going to be passed by him, but also corrected it.

Finally, the order was passed in my favor, and one copy of it was also sent to the local Police Station of the Buddha Colony area. None of us know what exactly happened with the neighbour but he became jovial with us.

This is Part 2 of Everything was going well until...