Sandeep Shah at his Vedic Village home

A week after the mob attack on Vedic Village, there is an eerie silence in what is now a deserted den.

The Village staff members have been advised to go on leave, construction work has been suspended, and all farmhouse owners have abandoned their homes.

All but one.

Sandeep Shah, who moved into Vedic Village with wife Bhawna and nine-year-old daughter Yukta in April 2009, is the lone resident in the resort-turned-ghost address.

“This is my home,” says the CEO of an advertising company on Lenin Sarani, who has sent his wife and daughter away to relatives in Delhi after last Sunday’s arson, but stayed on.

Shah’s ties with Vedic Village date back to 2001, when he bought a plot, and for a few years he was a frequent weekend visitor while his home took shape.

“I have seen the resort grow from scratch.... On weekdays we began to yearn for the pollution-free, peaceful surroundings of Vedic Village and so we finally moved in (from Salt Lake) this year,” he recounts.

The idyll was shattered by the attack on August 23.

“It was shocking. What was our heaven turned into hell in front of me. As soon as I heard the commotion and realised there was something wrong, I locked my wife and daughter inside the house. I went and hid amidst the trees, watching the horror unfold before me,” he shudders.

Now, Shah leaves for work in the morning and returns by early evening to an uneasy quiet. Beyond the giant doors of the resort, most of the debris has been removed but the desolation is devastating.

Nature too senses that all is not right. “In his stable, Adusar, everyone’s favourite stallion, does not respond to his nickname Handsome. The five geese have ceased cackling and dead fish were floating in the pond,” says Shah.

Raj K. Modi, the managing director of Vedic Realty, had sent him a letter last Thursday assuring the resort’s revamp and revival. Two days later Modi was arrested and everything at the resort came to a sombre standstill.

“When we see a project approved by the government and then years later, they start finding loopholes in it, investors like us feel so insecure. In Calcutta, unfortunately, people and circumstances always seem to be holding up progress,” rues the lone ranger at the resort.

Shah has been contacted by other farmhouse owners — from India and abroad — wanting to know where they stand and how badly damaged the resort is.

“Now, I just want things to return to normal,” says Shah, waiting to be reunited with his family in his dream home, far from the madding crowd.