Chapter 5

Over there, Gobar, having eaten, had arrived at the Ahir hamlet. Today many words had passed between him and Jhuniya. When he had set off with the cow, Jhuniya had come with him half the way. How was Gobar to lead the cow alone! It was natural for him to feel hesitation about going with a stranger. After walking some distance, Jhuniya looked at Gobar with knowing eyes and said, "Now, why would you ever come here again?"

Until a day before, Gobar had been a virgin lad. All the young women in the village were either his sisters or his sisters-in-law. With sisters there could be no teasing at all; the sisters-in-law, it is true, sometimes jested with him, but that was only innocent fun. In their eyes his youth as yet bore only flowers. Until fruit set on it, throwing clods at it was a vain thing. And, getting no encouragement from any side, his maidenhood clung to his neck. Jhuniya's deprived heart, which the sisters-in-law's mockery and laughter and dalliance had made more hungry still, was tempted by this very maidenhood of his. And in that lad too, the moment a leaf rustled, youth woke up like some sleeping beast of prey.

With unveiled flirtation Gobar said, "If a beggar has hope of getting alms, he will stand at the giver's door all day and all night."

Jhuniya said with a barb, "Then say this — that you too are a friend of self-interest."

The blood in Gobar's veins surged strong. He said, "If a hungry man stretches out his hand, he ought to be forgiven."

Jhuniya stepped into deeper water — "Until a beggar goes to ten doors, how is his belly to be filled? I don't give my mouth to such beggars. Such ones are met with in every lane. And then what does a beggar give — a blessing! No one's belly is filled by blessings."

Slow-witted Gobar could not grasp Jhuniya's drift. Jhuniya, from her small girlhood, had been going to customers' houses with milk. At her in-laws' house too she had had to carry milk to customers' houses. Even now the task of selling curds rested on her. She had had dealings with men of every kind. Two or four rupees came to her hand, and an hour's amusement was had as well, but this pleasure was as if a borrowed thing. There was no permanence in it, no surrender, no possession. She wanted such a love as she might live and die for, to which she might surrender herself. She wanted not merely the glow of a firefly, but the steady light of a lamp. She was a householder's girl, whose housewifeliness the dalliance of pleasure-seekers had not been able to crush.

With a face glowing with desire Gobar said, "If a beggar gets his fill at one door, why should he wander door to door?"

Jhuniya looked at him with kindly feeling. How innocent he is — he understands nothing at all.

"A beggar does not get his fill at one door. He'll get only a pinch. The whole of everything you'll get only when you give the whole of your own everything."

"What have I, Jhuniya?"

"You have nothing? I think that what you have for me, the great hundred-thousand-aires do not have. By not begging from me, you can take me at a price."

Gobar began to look at her with astonished eyes.

Jhuniya said again, "And do you know what the price will be? You'll have to be mine and stay mine. Then if I see you stretching your hand out before anyone, I'll turn you out of the house."

It was as though Gobar, groping in the dark, had found the thing he longed for. With a strange, fear-mingled joy, every hair of his body thrilled. But how would this be done? If he took Jhuniya in, how would he stay in the house with a kept woman? There was the trouble of the brotherhood. The whole village would set up a clamour. All would turn enemies. Mother would not even let her set foot in the house. But when she, being a woman, was not afraid, why should he, being a man, be afraid? At most, people would set him apart. He would simply live apart. What other woman in the village is there like Jhuniya? How sensibly she talks. Does she not know that I'm not worthy of her, and yet she loves me. She is willing to be mine. If the villagers turn me out, what of it — is there no other village in the world? And why leave the village? When Matadin took a chamar woman in, did anyone do anything to him? Datadin only ground his teeth. Matadin did do this much — that he saved his own dharma. Even now he puts no water in his mouth without bathing and worship. He cooks his own food at both meals himself, and now he does not even cook separately. Datadin and he sit and eat together. When Jhinguri Singh kept a Brahmin woman, did anyone do anything to him? Whatever respect and esteem he had then, he has just the same today — indeed it has grown. Earlier he used to go about looking for a job. Now, with that money, he has set himself up as a moneylender. The awe of the thakur he had already; the awe of the moneylender too has settled in. But then the thought came again — Jhuniya might be only jesting. It was necessary first to be free of all doubt on that score.

He asked, "Do you say it from the heart, Jhuna, or are you only baiting me with hope? I have already become yours, but will you too become mine?"

"That you have become mine — how am I to know?"

"If you want my life even, I'll give it."

"Do you even understand the meaning of giving one's life?"

"You explain it to me, then."

"The meaning of giving one's life is — to stay together and see it through. Once having taken the hand, to keep seeing it through a lifetime, though the world say what it likes, though one have to leave father and mother, brother and kin, home and door, everything. I've seen many who give their life with their mouths. Like bees they take the flower's nectar and fly off. Will you too not fly off just so?"

In one of Gobar's hands was the cow's tether-rope. With the other hand he caught hold of Jhuniya's hand. It was as though a hand had fallen on an electric wire. His whole body shook at this first touch of youth. How soft, how plump, how tender a wrist.

Jhuniya did not draw her hand away, as though this touch had no importance whatever for her. Then, after a moment, she said gravely, "Today you have taken my hand — remember it."

"I'll remember it well, Jhuna, and see it through to my dying breath."

With a smile full of disbelief Jhuniya said, "It's just so that everyone speaks, Gobar! Indeed in even sweeter, smoother words. If there's deceit in your heart, tell me. Let me be on my guard. To such ones I do not give my heart. With them I keep only a tie of laughing and talking. For years I've gone to market with milk. Babus, moneylenders, thakurs, lawyers, clerks, officers, each finer than the last, want to show their gallantry and ensnare me. One puts a hand on his chest and says, Jhuniya, don't make me yearn; one stares at me with juicy, intoxicating glances, as though he has swooned with love; one shows money, one shows ornaments. All stay ready to be my slaves, lifelong, indeed in the next birth too — but I know the nerve of every one of them. Every one of them is a bee that takes the nectar and flies off. I too tempt them, look at them with sidelong eyes, smile. They make a she-ass of me, I make an owl of them. Were I to die, no tear would come to their eyes. Were they to die, I'd say, good, the wretch is dead. But I — whoever's I become, I'll become his for a lifetime, in joy, in sorrow, in fortune, in misfortune, I'll stay with him. I am no loose woman, to go about laughing and talking with everyone. I am hungry neither for money nor for ornaments and clothes. I want only the company of a decent man, who reckons me his own and whom I too may reckon my own. There's one Pandit who wears great sect-marks on his brow. He takes half a seer of milk. One day his housewife had gone off somewhere to a feast. How was I to know — as on other days, I went inside with the milk. There I call out, Bahu-ji, Bahu-ji! Nobody answers at all. Just then I see Panditji coming, having shut the outer doors. I understood — his intention is bad. I asked sharply — why have you shut the doors? Has Bahu-ji gone somewhere? Why is there such a hush in the house?"

"He said — she's gone to a feast, and came two steps nearer me.

"I said — if you want to take the milk, take it, or I'm going. He said — today you'll not be allowed to go from here, Jhuni Rani! Every day you run a knife over my heart and flee — today you won't escape my hand. I tell you the truth, Gobar — the hairs of my body stood up.

Gobar said heatedly, "Let me set eyes on the fellow, and I'll dig a hole and bury him in the ground. I'll suck his blood. You just show him to me."

"Listen, then — to break the mouth of such ones I am enough by myself. My heart began to thump. If this fellow does some mischief, what will I do? No one would even hear me shout, but I had resolved in my mind that if he touched my body, I'd smash the full pot of milk on his face. To blazes with it — four or five seers of milk would be lost, but the fellow would remember it. Hardening my heart I said — don't stay in that hope, Panditji! I am an Ahir's daughter. I'll have every hair of your moustache plucked out. Is this what's written in your books and scriptures, that you shut another's daughter-in-law and daughter in your house and dishonour her? Is that why you sit with your net of sect-marks spread? He began to fold his hands, to fall at my feet — if you'll grant a lover's wish, what will you lose, Jhuna Rani! Show pity on the poor now and then, or God will ask — I gave you so much beauty and wealth, you did not even do one Brahmin a kindness with it, so what answer will you give? He said — I am a Brahmin, I get the gift of money and coin every day, today give the gift of beauty."

"I said it just to test his mind — I'll take fifty rupees. I tell you the truth, Gobar — he went at once into the room and, taking out five notes of ten, began to put them in my hands, and when I dropped the notes on the ground and set off toward the door, he caught my hand. I was ready beforehand. I struck the pot on his face. He was drenched from head to foot. He got a good blow too. He sat down clutching his head and began to cry woe and woe. I saw that now he could do nothing, so I landed two kicks in his back and, opening the doors, fled."

Gobar burst out laughing and said, "You did very well. He must have been bathed in milk. The sect-marks too must have washed off. Why didn't you pluck out his moustache as well?"

"The next day I went to his house again. His housewife had come back. He lay in his sitting-room with a bandage round his head. I said — shall I disclose your doings of yesterday, Pandit, if you say so? He began to fold his hands. I said — all right, spit and then lick it up, and I'll let you off. Rubbing his head on the ground he began to say — now my honour is in your hands, Jhuna, just take it that the Panditain will not leave me alive. I felt pity on him too." Gobar did not like her pity — "What did you do that for? Why didn't you go and tell his wife? She'd have beaten him with a slipper. One should feel no pity for such hypocrites. You show me his face tomorrow, then watch how I overhaul him."

Jhuniya, looking at his half-grown youth, said, "You'll be no match for him. He's a regular demon. Doesn't he gorge on free fare?"

How was Gobar to bear this slight on his youth? He said boastfully, "What does it matter that he's stout. Here are bones of steel. I do three hundred press-ups a day. I don't get milk and ghee, or by now my chest would have come out so far."

Saying this he spread out his chest and showed it.

Jhuniya looked with reassured eyes — "All right, I'll show him to you sometime. But there they're all alike — how many of them will you overhaul? Heaven knows what habit men have, that wherever they see a young, beautiful woman they begin straightway to stare and to beat their breasts. And these who are called great men — they are downright lechers. And then I am no beauty..."

Gobar objected, "You! At the sight of you the one wish is to seat you inside one's heart."

Jhuniya landed a light punch on his back — "There you start flattering, like the others. Whatever I am, that I myself know. But people only want to find a young one. To beguile an hour, what else does one need? A man looks for virtue in the one he must see life through with. I hear it and I see it too — these days the great houses have a strange game afoot. In the very quarter where my in-laws' house is, there lived a Kashmiri named Gapdu-Gapdu. A very great man he was. Five seers of milk were used in his house. He had three daughters. They must have been about twenty, twenty-five each. Each finer than the last. All three went to study at the big college. One perhaps even taught at the college. She got three hundred a month. The sitar they all played, the harmonium they all played, they danced, they sang, but none of them got married. Ram knows whether they did not like any man, or whether no man liked them. Once I asked the eldest lady, and she said laughing — we don't nurse that disease. But within doors they enjoyed themselves to the full. Whenever I looked, two or four young fellows were ringed about them. The eldest one used to put on coat and trousers, mount a horse and go riding about with men. Their goings-on were the talk of the whole city. Gapdu Babu kept his head bowed, as though smeared with soot in the face. He scolded the girls, made them understand, but every one of them said openly — you have not the least right to speak in our affairs. We are queens of our own minds; whatever we wish, that we'll do. What is the poor father to say to grown-up girls? He couldn't beat or bind them, couldn't scold or rebuke them. But brother, who is to talk of the affairs of great men? Whatever they do is all right. They fear neither the brotherhood nor the panchayat. What I just cannot understand is how anyone's mind changes day after day. Has a man become lower even than a cow or goat? But I call no one bad, brother! As you fashion the mind, so it becomes. I see such ones too, who, after the daily lentils and bread, sometimes want pastry and sweets as well to change the taste of the mouth. And I see such ones too, who get a fever at the sight of the home's bread and lentils. There are some poor women too who stay content in their own bread and lentils. They have nothing to do with pastry and sweets. Just look at my own two sisters-in-law. Our brothers are not one-eyed or hunchbacked — among ten young men they are young men; but the sisters-in-law don't fancy them. They want one who'll have gold earrings made, bring fine saris, feed them tidbits every day. Earrings and saris and sweets are not a little pleasing to me either, but if you say I should go about selling my honour for them, God save me from that. To eat and dress coarse with one man and pass one's life through, that's my one tune. Mostly it is men who corrupt women. When the man peeps about here and there, the woman too will let her eye stray. When the man runs after other women, the woman too will surely run after men. A man's loose ways are as displeasing to a woman as a woman's are to a man. Take it as just that. I had told my own man plainly — if you dart about here and there, then whatever I wish, that I'll do. To wish that you do as your mind pleases, and keep the woman under your thumb by fear of beating — that won't be. You do it in the open treasury, she'll do it in hiding; you cannot burn her and stay happy yourself."

For Gobar these were things of a new world. He listened wholly absorbed. Sometimes his feet would stop of themselves, then, coming to himself, he would walk on. Jhuniya had first enchanted him with her beauty. Today she had charmed him with words full of knowledge and experience, and with the account of her own chastity. Were he to get such a treasure-house of beauty, virtue and knowledge, his luck would be blessed. Then why should he fear the panchayat and the brotherhood?

When Jhuniya saw that her deep colour had set fast, she put a hand on her breast and, biting her tongue with her teeth, said, "Oh, this is your village come already! You too are a great fool — you didn't even tell me to turn back."

Saying this she turned back.

Gobar said insistently, "Why don't you come to my house for just a moment? Let Mother too see you."

Jhuniya, stealing her eyes away in bashfulness, said, "I won't go to your house like this. It only amazes me how I came so far. All right, tell me, when will you come now? Tonight there'll be good music at my door. Do come — I'll meet you behind my house."

"And if you don't?"

"Then turn back."

"Then I won't come."

"You'll have to come — I tell you, mind."

"You too give your word that you'll meet me."

"I give no word."

"Then I too won't come."

"Much I care!"

Jhuniya showed him her thumb and went off. At the very first meeting the two had each established their own claim over the other. Jhuniya knew he would come — how would he not come? Gobar knew she would meet him — how would she not meet him?