This Forsaken House Stayed Untouched After Anik Passed Away During Flood Season
This riverside house belonged to Anik Surya for nearly twenty-seven years.
Anik worked as a shadow puppet leather perforator, preparing finely pierced leather panels used by traditional puppet makers and performance troupes.
The house remained simple:
family room, compact kitchen, bedroom, and a narrow perforation room where Anik shaped leather and prepared intricate designs by hand.
The Pattern Frame Landing
Several details still remain inside:
- pierced leather panels stacked carefully
- fine awls resting beside trays
- pattern books tied with string
- cotton tunics hanging near hooks
- natural dyes stored inside jars
- lantern holders resting near shelves
- unfinished puppet sheets preserved beneath the landing
Anik had lived alone since his father passed away, inheriting both the house and much of the workshop knowledge connected to local performers.
The perforation room shaped his routine and income.
Neighbors often remembered lantern light flickering through leather panels during evening work sessions.
During Anik’s later years, televised entertainment and shrinking performance circuits sharply reduced demand for traditional shadow puppetry materials.
Orders became increasingly irregular.
Still, he continued supplying artisans and preserving older perforation techniques.
One prolonged flood season brought severe river overflow and repeated evacuation warnings to the settlement.
While attempting to protect stored materials and workshop equipment during rising water, Anik became trapped by sudden flooding.
He did not survive.
His relatives arranged the funeral but later relocated permanently inland.
The house remained closed.
Most belongings stayed untouched.
Today the house still reflects Anik’s careful routine.
The dye jars remain on the shelves.
The pattern books still rest near the wall.
And beneath the pattern frame landing, Anik’s final unfinished shadow puppet panel remains exactly where he left it.
