The Village That Forgot How to Cry

They called it Ruhgarh, a village wrapped in mist and mystery, nestled in the highlands where mobile signals died and time ran slower than usual.

What made Ruhgarh different wasn’t its silence — it was the fact that no one in the village could remember the last time someone cried.

Children didn’t cry when they scraped their knees. Mothers didn’t weep during childbirth. Even when elders passed away, their families stood around their beds — hollow-eyed but dry-faced.

Zayan, a journalist from the city, arrived with a camera and notebook. He had heard about Ruhgarh from a wandering folk singer who called it “the place grief forgot.” Intrigued, he decided to investigate.

The road was rough, unpaved, and coiled like a snake through steep hills. When he finally reached the village, it greeted him with eerie calm. The streets were clean, the homes neat, and the people polite — but something felt off. Their faces wore half-smiles, like masks from an old play, carefully hiding… something.

He checked into the only guesthouse run by an old man named Baba Noor. The man looked to be in his late seventies, with silver hair tied in a knot and cloudy eyes that had seen too much.

“You’re here to ask about the crying,” Baba said the moment Zayan unpacked his bags.

Zayan was startled. “Yes… how did you—?”

“You all come for that. None of you stay long.”

“But why?” Zayan asked. “What happened here?”

Baba poured him a cup of warm, bitter tea. “It was the winter of ‘92. There was a landslide. Half the village buried. We lost children, wives, husbands. The mountain swallowed them like dust. We cried then. Cried for days. But after that… nothing. It’s like our tears dried up forever.”

Zayan’s heart sank. “You mean… since then?”

“No one cries here, Zayan. We bury our pain like we buried our dead. We don’t talk about it. We don’t feel it. It’s easier that way.”

“But why not leave?”

Baba smiled faintly. “And go where? Grief follows. Here at least, we forget it.”

Over the next few days, Zayan roamed the village. He met children who didn’t cry when they fell, mothers who didn’t flinch at cuts and bruises, and elders who remembered funerals like one remembers bad weather — something that passed without thunder.

He filmed what he could, took notes, and tried to dig deeper. But the villagers shut down every time he mentioned emotions.

Then one night, he heard a sound — soft, stifled — like someone gasping through pain. He followed it through the darkness, past the banyan tree, to the old school building now used for storage.

There, he saw a woman. Mid-thirties. Kneeling in the dark. Her shoulders shook violently.

“Are you… crying?” he whispered.

She looked up — startled, afraid. “No! I wasn’t—please don’t tell anyone.”

Zayan approached gently. “It’s okay. It’s human. You can cry.”

Tears streaked down her cheeks. She looked relieved… and terrified.

“If they find out, they’ll think I’m cursed,” she said.

“Who?” Zayan asked.

“The others. We all pretend. We all feel — but no one shows. It’s the rule. We don’t cry because crying makes the pain real. And once it’s real… it can destroy you.”

Zayan sat beside her. “Suppressing grief doesn’t make it go away. It rots inside.”

She nodded. “But it’s the only way we survive here.”

He recorded her story — her son lost in the landslide, her mother’s death during childbirth. She hadn’t shed a tear in twenty years… until now.

Zayan left the next morning, with mixed emotions — sadness, anger, and deep respect. He published the story in a national magazine under the headline: “The Village That Forgot How to Cry.”

The story went viral. Activists, psychiatrists, and curious travelers came flooding in. Some villagers fled. Others locked their doors.

And the woman who cried? Her name was Safiya. She disappeared a week later. Some said she moved to the city. Others whispered she walked into the forest and never returned.

Zayan returned a year later. Ruhgarh was quieter than before. The mist thicker. The faces colder.

And on the old school’s wall, someone had scrawled in red:

“Some wounds heal. Some… we choose to forget.”