Chapter 21

In the villages, for six months of the year the drum and cymbals ring out in some festival or other. From a month before Holi to a month after, the fag songs are sung; the moment Asadh sets in, the Alha songs begin; and in Sawan and Bhadon there are the kajli songs. After the kajlis the Ramayan recitation begins. Semri is no exception. The threats of the mahajan and the bullets of the agent cannot put any obstacle in this merrymaking. There is no grain in the house, no clothes on the body, no money in the knot of the cloth — no matter. The joyful instinct of life cannot be suppressed; one cannot live without laughing.

The chief place for singing and music in Holi was Nokheram's chaupal. There the bhang was made, there the colour was thrown, there the dancing took place. In this celebration the Karinda Sahib's five or ten rupees would be spent. And who else had the means to hold a gathering at his own door?

But this time Gobar has drawn the young men of the village to his own door, and Nokheram's chaupal lies empty. At Gobar's door bhang is being ground, betel rolls are being made, colour is being mixed, the matting is spread, singing is going on, and in the chaupal a silence reigns. The bhang is kept there, but who is to grind it? The drum and cymbals are all on hand, but who is to sing? Whoever you see is running off towards Gobar's door — here in the bhang there is the splendour of rose-water and saffron and almonds. Yes, yes — Gobar himself brought a whole seer of almonds. The moment you drink it, your body is refreshed, your eyes open up. He has brought scented tobacco — the special Biswan kind! In the colour too he has put kewra. He knows how to earn money and knows how to spend it too. Bury it and keep it, and who looks at you? This is the glory of wealth. And it is not only bhang. All the singers — every one of them has an invitation too. And in the village there is no lack of dancers, nor of those who can act. Sobha mimics the lame so that — who could do it? And in mimicking voices he has no equal. Whoever's voice you name, that he can speak — a man's, an animal's too. Girdhar has no match in mimicry. Let him mimic a lawyer, let him mimic the patwari, the inspector, the peon, the seth — he can mimic them all. Yes, the poor fellow had no such props, but this time Gobar has had every prop fetched for him, and his mimicry will be worth seeing.

This talk spread so far that from evening itself the spectators began to gather. Groups of onlookers began coming from the surrounding villages. By the time it struck ten, three or four thousand people had assembled. And when Girdhar stood up with his troupe got up in the guise of Jhinguri Singh, there was no place even to stand. The same bald head, the same big moustache, and the same paunch! He sits eating his meal, and the first Thakurain sits fanning him.

The Thakur, looking at the Thakurain with amorous eyes, says, "Even now you wear such youthful charm that if any young man saw you, he'd burn with longing." And the Thakurain swells and says, "That's just why you've brought a new bride!"

"Her I've brought to serve you. How will she equal you?"

The junior wife hears these words and goes off with her face puffed up.

In the next scene the Thakur is lying on the cot, and the junior wife sits on the floor with her face turned away. The Thakur, again and again making the vain effort to turn her face towards him, says, "Why are you sulking with me, my darling?"

"Go where your darling is. As for me, I'm a slave-girl, come to do service and attendance for others."

"You are my queen. To do your service and attendance there's that old woman."

The first Thakurain hears this, and enters the room with a broom and lands several broom-blows on him. The Thakur Sahib flees to save his skin.

Then there was another mimicry, in which the Thakur, writing a deed for ten rupees, gave five, and cut off the rest as present and writing-fee and customary dues and interest.

The peasant comes and falls weeping at the Thakur's feet. With great difficulty the Thakur agrees to give the money. When the paper is written and five rupees are placed in the tenant's hand, he, puzzled, asks—

"But this is only five, Malik!"

"Not five, it's ten. Count it when you get home."

"No, Sarkar, it's five."

"Was there one rupee for the present, or not?"

"Yes, Sarkar!"

"One for the writing-fee?"

"Yes, Sarkar!"

"One for the paper?"

"Yes, Sarkar."

"One for the customary due?"

"Yes, Sarkar!"

"One for the interest?"

"Yes, Sarkar!"

"Five cash, makes ten, or not?"

"Yes, Sarkar! Now keep these five from my side, please."

"What a madman he is!"

"No, Sarkar — one rupee is the present of the junior Thakurain, one rupee of the senior Thakurain. One rupee for the senior Thakurain's betel, one for the junior Thakurain's betel. The one that's left, that's for your funeral rites."

In this way Nokheram and Pateshwari and Datadin — one by one, each was taken to task. And though there may have been no novelty in the gibes, and the mimicries were old, yet Girdhari's manner was so comical, the spectators were so simple of heart, that they laughed even at a thing said for no reason. All night the buffoonery went on, and tormented hearts, finding their revenge in imagination, stayed pleased. When the last mimicry ended, the crows were cawing.

As soon as morning came, whoever you saw, on his tongue were those very songs of the night, that very mimicry, those very gibes. The leaders had become a spectacle. Wherever they went, two or four boys would fall in behind them and fling those very gibes. Jhinguri Singh was a man fond of fun; he took it as fun, but Pateshwari had the bad habit of getting irritated. And as for Pandit Datadin, he was so short-tempered that he was ready to fight. He was used to receiving honour from everyone. The agent, let alone — even the Rai Sahib would bow his head the moment he saw him. That such fun should be made of him, and in his own village? This was unbearable for him. If he had had the fire of brahminical power he would have burnt these wicked men to ash. He would have cursed them so that the whole lot of them would have been reduced to ash, but in this Kali age the very effect of a curse is gone. So he drew out the weapon of the Kali age. He came to Hori's door and, his eyes bulging, said, "Won't you come to work even today, Hori? Now you're better. How much loss I've suffered — you don't think of that."

Gobar had slept late. He had only just got up and was coming out rubbing his eyes when Datadin's voice fell on his ears. Far from making any obeisance, he showed bravado instead and said, "Now he won't do your wage-work. We have our own cane to sow too."

Datadin said, tossing tobacco snuff into his mouth, "How can he not do the work? You can't leave work in the middle of the year. In Jeth, if he wants to leave, let him leave; if he wants to do it, let him do it. Before that he can't leave."

Gobar said with a yawn, "He hasn't written you a bond of slavery. As long as he wished, he did the work. Now he doesn't wish, he won't do it. No one can use force in this."

"So Hori won't do the work?"

"No!"

"Then give me my money with interest. Three years' interest comes to a hundred rupees. Principal added, it's two hundred. We had thought three rupees a month would keep being cut off in interest, but if you've no wish for it, then don't do it. Give me my money. If you want to be a rich seth, then do a rich seth's work."

Hori said to Datadin, "When did I ever refuse your service, Maharaj? But our cane is lying to be sown too, isn't it."

Gobar scolded his father. "What service, and whose service? No one here is anyone's servant. All are equal. What a fine thing. Lend someone a hundred rupees and take work out of him in interest his whole life long. And the principal stays just as it is! This is not money-lending, it's sucking blood."

"Then give the money, brother, why the quarrel — I take an anna in the rupee in interest. Considering you a man of the village and household, I gave it at half an anna in the rupee."

"We'll give one rupee per hundred. Not a cowrie more. If you want to take it, take it; else take it from the court. One rupee per hundred is not a small interest."

"It seems money's gone to the head."

"The heat goes to the heads of those who take ten for one. We're labourers. Our heat runs off by way of sweat. I remember it well — you gave thirty rupees for a bullock. It became a hundred, and now from a hundred it's become two hundred. That's how you people, looting and looting the peasants, have turned them into labourers and yourselves sat down as owners of their land. From thirty to two hundred! Is there any limit! How long ago was it, Dada?"

Hori said in a piteous voice, "It must be eight or nine years ago."

Gobar put his hand to his chest and said, "In nine years, thirty became two hundred. At one rupee a hundred, how much does it come to?"

Reckoning on the ground with a potsherd, he said, "In ten years it comes to thirty-six rupees. Principal added, sixty-six. Take seventy rupees for it. More than that I won't give a cowrie."

Datadin, throwing Hori in between, said, "Do you hear, Hori, Gobar's verdict? Am I to leave off my own two hundred and take seventy, else go to court? If this is the kind of dealing there is, how many days will the world run? And you sit listening — but understand this: I am a Brahmin; you'll get no peace from devouring my money. I give up even these seventy rupees, I won't even go to court — go. If I am a Brahmin, I'll show you I get the full two hundred rupees, and you'll come to my door and pay it with folded hands."

Datadin turned back in a fury. Gobar stayed sitting in his place. But in Hori's belly a revolution of religion had broken loose. Had it been the money of a Thakur or a bania, he would not have worried so much, but a Brahmin's money! If even a single pie of it were withheld, it would come out by breaking his bones. God forbid that a Brahmin's wrath should fall on anyone. In the lineage there would remain no one even to give a palmful of water, no one to light a lamp in the house. His religion-fearing mind was thrown into terror. He ran and seized the Pandit's feet and said in an anguished voice, "Maharaj, as long as I live, I will pay every single pie of yours. Don't go by the boy's words. The dealing, after all, was between you and me. Who is he to butt in?"

Datadin softened a little. "Just look at his high-handedness — he says, take seventy out of two hundred rupees, or go to court. He hasn't yet breathed the air of the court, that's why. Once he falls into someone's grip, this mettle won't be left. Four days in the city, and he's become a tyrant!"

"I tell you, Maharaj, I'll pay every single pie of yours."

"Then from tomorrow you must come to work at our place."

"Our own cane has to be sown, Maharaj — else I'd do nothing but your work."

When Datadin had gone, Gobar looked at his father with scornful eyes and said, "Off you went to coax the deity. It's you people yourselves who've spoiled the temper of all these men. He gave thirty rupees, now he'll take two hundred, and a scolding on top of it, and he'll have you do wage-work, and working you and working you he'll work you to death."

Hori, taking, in his own mind, the side of truth, said, "One must not let go of righteousness, son — each man's deeds go with him. The interest at which we took the money — that must of course be paid. And he is a Brahmin, after all. Will his money sit well in our stomachs? Such fare is digested only by their kind."

Gobar knit his brows. "Who's telling you to let go of righteousness? And who's telling you to withhold a Brahmin's money? I only say this — we'll not pay so much interest. The bank people take twelve annas in interest. You take one rupee. Will you go and loot somebody else?"

"And if a hair of his is hurt?"

"Let it be hurt. Are we to dig a pit for ourselves out of fear of his being hurt?"

"Son, as long as I live, let me walk my own path. When I die, then do whatever you wish."

"Then pay it yourself. I won't strike an axe at my own feet with my own hands. It was my foolishness that I spoke in between you two — you've eaten it, you pay it. Why should I give my life?"

Saying this, Gobar went inside. Jhuniya asked, "Why did you fall to wrangling with Dada so early in the morning?"

Gobar told her the whole tale, and at the end said, "The burden of debt on him will just keep growing this way. How far shall I keep paying it off? Earning and earning, he has filled others' houses. Why should I fall into the pit he has dug? He did not take the loan after asking me. He did not take it for me. I am not his debtor."

Meanwhile, among the leaders, a conspiracy was being hatched to bring Gobar low. If this lad is not put into the screws, he'll raise an uproar in the village. He's gone and become a chess-queen from a pawn, hasn't he — so of course he'll move crookedly. From where has he learnt so much law? He says, I'll give no more than one rupee per hundred interest. Take it if you wish, else go to court. Last night, gathering all the boys of the village, what an outrage he committed. But there was no lack of envy among the leaders either. Everyone was pleased at the ridicule of those of his own rank. Pateshwari and Nokheram were talking. Pateshwari said, "But they all know the smallest detail of every house. They harried Jhinguri Singh so that don't ask. Hearing the talk of the two Thakurains, people rolled about with laughter."

Nokheram said with a guffaw, "But the mimicry was true. Several times I've seen his junior begum joking with the boys standing at the door."

"And the senior queen stays got up as a young woman, with kohl and sindoor and mahawar on."

"Day and night there's strife between the two. Jhinguri is a hardened shameless one. Anyone else would have gone mad."

"I heard he did a very nasty mimicry of you. Shut you up in the chamar woman's house and had you beaten."

"I'll just put him right by filing a suit for the arrears of rent. He too will remember well that he had to deal with somebody."

"But hasn't he paid the rent?"

"But I haven't given a receipt. What proof is there that the rent has been paid? And who looks at accounts here? I'll send a peon and summon him this very day."

Hori and Gobar were both irrigating the field to sow cane. There was no hope of a cane crop this time, so the field had lain fallow. Now that the bullocks had come, why not sow cane?

But the two of them were like adversaries. They neither spoke nor looked at each other. Hori was driving the bullocks and Gobar was working the leather water-bag. Sona and Rupa were both running the water through the field when a quarrel broke out between them. The subject of dispute was this: whether Jhinguri Singh's junior Thakurain eats first herself and then feeds her husband, or first feeds her husband and then eats herself. Sona said she eats first herself. Rupa's opinion was the opposite.

Rupa argued. "If she eats first, then why isn't she fat? Why is the Thakur fat? If the Thakur fell on her, the Thakurain would be crushed."

Sona contradicted her. "You think people get fat from eating well. From eating well people get strong, not fat. People get fat from eating grass and fodder."

"Then is the Thakurain stronger than the Thakur?"

"Why else? Just the other day there was a fight between the two, and the Thakurain shoved the Thakur so hard that his knees got grazed."

"Then you too will eat first yourself and then feed your husband?"

"Why else!"

"But Mother always feeds Dada first."

"That's just why, whenever you look, Dada is scolding her. I'll grow strong and keep my husband under control. Your husband will beat you, will break your bones."

Rupa, near to tears, said, "Why would he beat me — I just won't do anything to deserve a beating."

"He won't listen to anything. You say even a little something — and he'll set to beating. Beating you and beating you, he'll flay your skin."

Rupa, getting cross, tried to tear Sona's sari with her teeth, and, failing, began to pinch her.

Sona teased her further. "He'll cut your nose off too."

At this Rupa bit her sister with her teeth. Sona's arm was bloodied. She shoved Rupa hard. She fell, and getting up began to cry. Sona too, seeing the tooth-marks, began to cry.

Hearing the two of them shrieking, Gobar came up full of fury and dealt each of them two blows of his fist. The two of them, weeping, went off home. The irrigation work stopped. Over this a clash broke out between father and son.

Hori asked, "Who'll run the water now? Off you ran and chased both of them away. Now why don't you go and bring them back, coaxing them?"

"It's you yourself who've spoiled the whole lot of them."

"Beating them like this will only make them more shameless."

"Stop their two meals' food, and they'll come right of themselves."

"I am their father, not a butcher."

Once your foot stubs against something, for some reason it keeps getting stubbed again and again, and sometimes the toe festers and gives trouble for months. The goodwill between father and son had today taken just such a hurt, and on top of it this third blow had fallen.

Gobar went home and took Jhuniya along to water the field. Jhuniya came to the field with the child. Dhaniya and her two daughters sat watching. To the mother too this insolence of Gobar's seemed wrong. If he had beaten Rupa she would not have minded, but to beat a grown daughter — that was unbearable for her.

That very night Gobar resolved to return to Lucknow. He could no longer stay here. When in the house no one cares about him, why should he stay? He cannot speak in matters of money and dealing. He just gave the girls a little beating, and people went so beside themselves, as if he were an outsider. So in this inn he will not stay.

The two of them had eaten their meal and come outside when Nokheram's peon came and said, "Come, the Karinda Sahib has summoned you."

Hori said with pride, "Why summon me at night? I've already paid the arrears."

The peon said, "I've got the order to summon you. Whatever you have to plead, come there and plead it."

Hori had no wish, but he had to go. Gobar sat on, listless. In half an hour Hori returned and, filling the pipe, began to smoke. Now Gobar could hold back no longer. He asked, "What was the matter he summoned you for?"

Hori said in a choked voice, "I've paid every single pie of rent. He says two years' rent is owing against you. Just the other day, when I sold the cane, I gave twenty-five rupees to him right there, and today he produces two years' arrears. I told him, I won't give a single cowrie."

Gobar asked, "Do you have a receipt?"

"Where do they give receipts?"

"Then why do you go giving money without taking a receipt?"

"How was I to know these people would cheat? This is all the fruit of your doings. You made fun of him last night — this is the punishment for it. Living in the water, you don't pick a quarrel with the crocodile. With interest added, he's made out seventy rupees of arrears. From whose house will these come?"

Gobar said in his own defence, "If you had taken a receipt, I could have mocked him a hundred times over, and they couldn't have bent a hair of yours. I can't understand why you don't act with care in your dealings. If they don't give a receipt this way, send the money by post. This is all that'll happen — there'll be a rupee or so of postage. At least this kind of swindle won't go on."

"If you hadn't lit this fire, nothing would have happened. Now all the leaders are upset. They're threatening eviction. God knows how the boat will get across!"

"I'll go and ask them."

"You'll go and light another fire."

"If a fire has to be lit, I'll light a fire. If they evict, let them. I'll put the Ganges-water in their hands and make them swear an oath in the court. You sit with your tail tucked in. Behind this I'll stake my life. I don't want to withhold a single paisa of anyone's, nor do I want to lose a single paisa of my own."

He rose that very moment and reached Nokheram's chaupal. He saw that the whole cabinet of leaders was sitting there. Seeing Gobar, all of them grew alert. The atmosphere was filled with the dull oppression of a conspiracy.

Gobar asked in an agitated voice, "What is this, Karinda Sahib, that Dada has paid you rent right up to date, and now you're producing two years' arrears? What sort of trickery is this?"

Nokheram, lying back on his bolster and putting on an air of authority, said, "As long as Hori is alive, I will not discuss any matter of dealings with you."

Gobar said in a wounded voice, "So I'm nothing in the house?"

"In your own house you may be everything. Here you are nothing."

"Very well, file the eviction suit. I'll have you take up the Ganges-water in court and pay the money, and I'll bring a hundred witnesses from this very village and prove that you don't give receipts. They're simple, straightforward peasants, they say nothing, so you've taken it that they're all wooden owls. The Rai Sahib lives where I live. The whole village must take him for a bogey; I don't. I'll tell him every single detail, and I'll see how you recover the money from me a second time."

There was the strength of truth in his speech. In timid beings even truth turns dumb. The very cement that, laid on brick, turns into stone, would turn to mud if laid on mud. Gobar's fearless plain-speaking pierced the armour of injustice with which Nokheram's feeble soul, decked out, was thinking itself mighty.

Nokheram said, as though making an effort to recall something, "Why are you getting so hot? What's there to get hot about in this? If Hori has paid the money, then somewhere or other it must have been entered. Tomorrow I'll take out the papers and look. Now something is coming back to me — that perhaps Hori did pay the money. Be quite at ease — if the money has come here, it can't go anywhere. You wouldn't lie for the sake of a little money, and I won't grow rich on this money either."

Coming back from the chaupal, Gobar tongue-lashed Hori so that the poor self-fearing old man was near to tears. "You're worse even than children, who cry out hearing a cat mew. How many places shall I keep going about protecting you? I'm giving you seventy rupees. If Datadin takes it, get a receipt written. If you've paid even a paisa beyond it, then you won't get even a paisa from me. I am not stuck in foreign parts so that you may keep getting yourselves looted and I keep earning and earning and filling up the hole. I'll go tomorrow, but I tell you this much — don't borrow a paisa from anyone, and don't give anything to anyone. Mangaru, Dulari, Datadin — with all of them you must get the interest down to one rupee per hundred."

Dhaniya too had eaten and come outside. She said, "Why are you going so soon, son? Stay two or four days more and get the cane sowing done, and settle the accounts of the dealings properly too, then go."

Gobar said, putting on airs, "I'm losing two or three rupees a day — you understand that too. Here I do at the most some four or six annas' worth of wage-work, and this time I'll take Jhuniya along too. There I have great trouble over eating and drinking."

Dhaniya said timidly, "As you wish — but how will she manage the house alone there, how will she look after the child?"

"Now am I to look after the child or look after my own convenience — I can't blow on the hearth."

"I'm not stopping you from taking her — but to live in foreign parts with wife and child, no one ahead or behind — think how much trouble it is."

"Companions and comrades turn up in foreign parts, Mother, and this is a world of self-interest, anyway. He with whom you bear a four-paisa hardship, he is your own. Empty-handed, even parents don't ask after you."

Dhaniya understood the gibe. She caught fire from head to foot. She said, "Have you reckoned even your parents among those money-friends?"

"I'm seeing it with my own eyes."

"You're not seeing it; parents' hearts are not so hard. Yes, sons indeed, the moment they begin earning four paisa, turn their eyes away from their parents. In this very village I can give you not one or two but ten or twenty examples. For whom do parents take on debts and loans? For their sons and daughters, or for their own pleasures and luxuries?"

"Who knows for whom you took the debt — I never even knew of a paisa of it."

"You grew so big without being reared?"

"What did it cost you to rear me? While I was a baby you gave me milk. Then you left me like a foundling. What everyone ate, that I ate. Milk didn't come for me, butter wasn't churned for me. And now you too wish, and Dada too wishes, that I should pay off the whole debt, give the rent, get the girls married. As if my whole life is just to pay off your dues. Have I no wife and children of my own?"

Dhaniya was stunned. In a moment the sweet dream of her life seemed to break. Until now she had been glad in her mind that all her sorrow and poverty were now gone. Since Gobar had come home, a glow of laughter had stayed blooming on her face. A softness had come into her speech and a generosity into her dealings. God had shown her mercy, so she ought to walk with her head bowed. The peace within had become courtesy without. These words fell on her heart like burning sand, and all her hopes were singed like roasting gram. All her pride was ground to dust. After hearing this much, what relish was left in life? The boat in which, sitting, she had wished to cross this voyage of life, had broken — so for what happiness was she to live!

But no! Her Gobar is not so selfish. He never gave a back-answer to his mother, never insisted obstinately on anything. Whatever coarse, dry thing he got, that he ate. That same simple, innocent image of gentleness and affection — why is he today speaking such heart-breaking words? Against his wish no one has said anything — both parents only gaze at his face. He himself started the talk of the dealings; else who tells him, "Pay off your parents' dues"? For parents, is it not happiness enough that he earns and eats with honour and dignity like a respectable man? If he can do something, let him help his parents. If he cannot, his parents will not throttle him. He wants to take Jhuniya along — let him take her gladly. Dhaniya had said it only with thought of his good — that taking Jhuniya there would, instead of giving him comfort, bring far more trouble. What was there in this so stinging that he should flare up so? It must be — this fire is Jhuniya's lighting. Sitting idle, she keeps reading him this mantra. Here she gets nothing for finery and adornment, and she has to do some household work or other too. There money will come to hand, she'll eat sleek to her heart's content, dress sleek, and sleep with her legs stretched out. What does it take to cook bread for two people — there money is needed. They say cooked breads can be had ready-made in the market. This whole disturbance she has stirred up — she's lived in the city some time too. The food and water there has touched her lips. Here no one used to ask after her. This simpleton turned up. She snared him. When she came here pregnant of five months, how she mewed and mewed. Had she not found shelter here then, today she'd be begging somewhere. This is the reward of that very kindness! Because of this very witch a fine had to be paid, there was disgrace in the brotherhood, the farming was wrecked, the whole ruin came about. And today this witch is boring a hole in the very leaf-plate from which she eats. She set eyes on money, and her eyes got greedy. That's why she goes about so stiff and stuck-up, her temper not matching anyone's. Now the boy has begun to earn four paisa! All those days she hadn't a word to ask, then she'd run with oil to press her mother-in-law's feet. The witch wants to snatch the treasure of her life from her hand.

She said in a grieved voice, "Who is giving you this mantra, son? You were not like this. The parents are yours, the sisters are yours, the house is yours. Who here is an outsider? And shall we sit on long? If you keep up the honour of the household, the happiness will be yours. Does a man earn wealth for the people of his household, or for someone else? Even a pig fills its own belly. I never knew Jhuniya would become a serpent and bite us ourselves."

Gobar said with a snap, "Mother, I'm no fool that Jhuniya would teach me a mantra. You curse her for nothing. The whole burden of your household I cannot bear. Whatever I can do, I'll help you, but I cannot put fetters on my own feet."

Jhuniya too came out of the room and said, "Mother, don't take out the weaver's anger on his beard. I'm no child that I'd take the blame. Each one understands his own good and ill. A man is not born just to keep doing penance all his life and one day die empty-handed. All want some happiness in life; all have the longing to have four paisa in hand."

Dhaniya said, grinding her teeth, "All right, Jhuniya, don't show off so much wisdom. Now you too have grown fit to think of your own good and ill. When you came here and wept with your head laid on my feet, did your own good and ill occur to you then? Had we too begun thinking of our own good and ill at that hour, today there'd be no trace of you anywhere."

After this, war broke out. Taunts and reproaches, abuse and foul language, spitting and spite — no word was spared. Gobar too kept dealing his sting in between. Hori sat in the porch hearing it all. Sona and Rupa stood in the courtyard with their heads bowed. Dulari, Puniya, and several women had arrived to mediate. Amid the thundering, a few drops fell sometimes too. Both were bewailing their own fate. Both were cursing God, and both were proving their own blamelessness. Jhuniya was digging up buried corpses. Today she had developed a special sympathy for Hira and Sobha, whom Dhaniya had ruined. Dhaniya had never to this day got along with anyone — so how could she get along with Jhuniya? Dhaniya was trying to give her own defence, but somehow or other public opinion was on Jhuniya's side. Perhaps because Jhuniya did not let restraint slip from her hand, while Dhaniya was beside herself. Perhaps also because Jhuniya was now the wife of an earning man, and there was more advisability in keeping her pleased.

Then Hori came into the courtyard and said, "I fall at your feet, Dhaniya, be quiet. Don't smear soot on my face. Yes, if your heart's not satisfied yet, then hear more."

Dhaniya, hissing, ran that way. "You too go and grab the thick branch. I alone am to blame. And she's showering flowers on me, is she?"

The field of war changed.

"Whoever stoops to wrangle with the lesser, he is the lesser."

By what logic should Dhaniya accept Jhuniya as the lesser?

Hori said in a pained voice, "All right — not lesser, the greater, then. A man who doesn't want to stay — will you keep him bound? It is the parents' religion to rear and bring up the son and make him grown. That we have done. He's got his hands and feet. Now what do you want — that they should bring fodder and feed us? The parents' religion towards the sons is sixteen annas. The sons' religion towards the parents is not even one anna. He who goes — bless him and send him off. Our God is the master. Whatever is fated to be borne, we'll bear it. Forty, seven, forty-seven years have passed this way in weeping and lamenting. There are five or ten left; those too will pass just so."

Meanwhile Gobar was making ready to leave. Even the water of this house is forbidden to him. When his own mother says such things to him, now he will not even look at her face again.

In no time his bedding was tied up. Jhuniya too put on her chunari. Chunnu too, wearing his cap and frock, became a king.

Hori said in a tear-moist voice, "Son, I have no face to say anything to you, but my heart won't be reconciled. Will it be such a great wrong if you go and just touch the feet of your unfortunate mother? From whose womb you were born, and on whose blood you were nourished — can you not do even this much for her?"

Gobar said, turning his face away, "I do not consider her my mother."

Hori said, with tears in his eyes, "As you wish. Wherever you stay, stay happy."

Jhuniya went to her mother-in-law and touched her feet with the edge of her aanchal. Not a word of blessing came from Dhaniya's lips. She did not even lift her eyes to look. Gobar went ahead with the child in his lap. Jhuniya followed, the bedding tucked under her arm. A chamar's boy carried the trunk. Several men and women of the village came as far as the village edge to see Gobar off.

And Dhaniya sat weeping, as though someone were splitting her heart with a saw. Her motherhood had become like that house in which a fire has broken out and everything has been burnt to ash. Not even a place left to sit and weep.