Cast of Characters
Janaki — head of the family, mother of Manprakash and Uttam (lead)
Ishar — Janaki's son (supporting)
Maya — Manprakash's widow, the daughter-in-law (lead)
Rupan — a village woman, Janaki's neighbour (supporting)
Uttam — Manprakash's younger brother, serving in the army (character by letter)
Dhanvanchand — Maya's old admirer (mentioned)
Scene One
Janaki has made a seat-cushion of coarse homespun sheeting. Setting flowers upon the worship-stool, she touched her forehead to the ground in obeisance, and as she rose she wiped her eyes with the cushion's edge; then, out of long habit, she went and stood before the barandi — the woven canopy. She looked up through the open space, and as she turned to fold it, her eye fell on Maya, going to fetch water, a pitcher in her hand.
Janaki: Maya!
Maya: Yes.
Janaki: Daughter, last night too you said Ishu has to go and give the wedding-gift at Lamba's daughter's wedding. Let me grind two flatbreads' worth of flour for him early. He has seven or eight kos to go. And then the heat...
Maya: I've made the dough, Mother ji, the potato curry too. You make them up for him. I'm going to bathe, and I'll fill a pitcher on the way. There's no drinking water inside.
Janaki: Wait one moment before you go, daughter! The path runs right past the well. Your elder brother-in-law will come along just behind you. See him off, and then go.
[Maya turned silently and went to the kitchen. Meanwhile Ishar comes in, drawing on tobacco from the little brass mouthpiece of a hookah. A double-folded homespun loincloth and shirt, a woollen coat over the shirt, a turban on his head, a sheet on his shoulder.]
Ishar: Amma, what gift is to be given at theirs?
Janaki: [with a sigh] At our Manprakash's wedding they gave clothes to me and to Manprakash. Five rupees too. Were Manprakash here today, who knows what all he would give? Last night I spoke of it to Maya, and the poor girl opened her trunk, took out her untouched bridal outfits, and said — give these away; what use are they to me now?
Ishar: What did you say?
Janaki: I could neither bring myself to take them nor to refuse. I remembered the day Prakash came on two months' leave from the regiment, and the moment he arrived he had four silk suits made and brought for his bride. She wore only one of them. And then he went off to the front, and the poor girl never even touched the rest.
Ishar: Are these silk suits from her wedding days now to be given away as gifts, Amma?
Janaki: And what else will they be of use for, son? To whom is she to show them by wearing them? When the one who would have looked is gone, what good is it to keep them locked away to rot?
Ishar: Amma, Maya has a long while yet to live. The poor girl did not see even two years of married happiness. How is she to finish this long road? How is she to climb this steep slope? And you say — let even her playthings be parcelled out and given away.
Janaki: But who can fight with fate, Ishar? When it falls upon your head, what remedy is there? Who can wipe out what is written on the brow? One cannot turn back the tide, one cannot leap away like a frog. As the Lord keeps us, so must we remain. What else can a person do?
Ishar: When punishment comes without a crime, how far can one bear it, Amma? One who with his own hands shapes a beautiful vessel — who, choosing from lakhs, gives life to two playthings and brings them together to one place, and then breaks one of them without mercy — why break it? And why fling the other away to weep and wail? What sins had our Prakash committed? What sins has this poor Maya committed? Where is there a place to make one's complaint?
Janaki: (whose eyes have brimmed over) Son! Some sins must be mine. If not of this birth, then of some past one. Where the matter passes understanding, what is a person to say? What to do? Here — the bride has made the flatbreads and brought them. She has brought her gold-threaded yellow satin suit too. Take it, Ishar, here. What else will you give now? Give five rupees as well.
[Ishar wrapped Maya's silk suit in his sheet, took the bundle of flatbreads, and went out. Maya too took the pitcher and rose to go to the well. Janaki kept sitting there, gazing out through the door. Just then, seeing Rupan coming into the courtyard, Janaki composed herself and stood up. Out in the open yard lay a mat woven of date-palm leaves. On it the two women sat down.]
Janaki: Listen, girl — your child is better now, isn't he? Take a little care of him. This worry too half-ruins one's life. How is it you're out so early this morning?
Rupan: I'd been meaning to come for five days, but one had to get free even to step out. They keep saying every day — what sorrow has God, in this old age, dealt Aunt Janaki, who knows! In our village, who else has so gentle a nature, who else feels another's sorrow as she does? Poor Prakash was simply unlucky — what else?
Janaki: How was he unlucky, Rupan? He who died fighting to defend his country — how was he unlucky, daughter? Will he not have ridden the celestial chariot and gone to heaven? My Uttam too is in the regiment. I have not once written to him that his brother has died at the front and that he should leave the regiment and come home. Rupan, the calamity that is to come never turns aside. However far off, in however remote a place one may hide, it finds one out there too. But now and then I do think this — had Uttam gone in Prakash's place, I would not have grieved so. Seeing Maya before me, the sorrow of his going simply will not fade. Poor Uttam was unmarried; he would not have left behind a smouldering fire like this. Unlucky are we, who must now pass our days pining in his memory. Unlucky is poor Maya, whose days these were for play. God gave her beauty, gave her a sound and lovely body, gave her a sweet, nectar-like nature — but then gave her this poison too: that go now, and all of it shall become a garland of thorns for you. What am I to say... to that God?
Rupan: Maya is deeply grieved, Aunt — but not all young women are such as to accept defeat before these sorrows. Beauty finds a hundred ways and means. Youth leaps a hundred fences. What can one say?
Janaki: They may leap them — but those who go crooked turn out to be family-drowning sluts. My Maya is not of that kind.
Rupan: Aunt, even birds reared on sweet crumbs, if you do not shut them in a cage, will fly away. When youth grows the wings of beauty, it no longer stays content merely longing for cheerful places. Maya — not in today's times, but who knows about tomorrow? Does it take long to go astray? We hear the tales of great sages and ascetics. And then a poor mortal is, after all, only a poor mortal.
Janaki: What scripture have you opened up so suddenly today, girl, in quite another vein? What had you come for?
Rupan: I had come to say this — that you should go once and look in on the boy, Kishan. Last night, sitting by the boy's cot, Kishan's father said — Aunt should be told that she ought to have Maya's chadar-andazi done with Uttam. For one, she would stay within the house; and for another...
Janaki: For another, what?
Rupan: He said — near the village of Maya's parents there is a certain Dhanvanchand, isn't there? These past days they've seen him on this road four or five times. He came once or twice to the shop too, for cigarettes and such, so they must have asked why he keeps wandering here. He said he had some rupees to collect from a client. They asked who the client was. Then he changed the subject. Before Maya's betrothal to Prakash, there was talk about the reputation of Dhanvanchand's mother. It was heard even in those days that Dhanvan and Maya had some understanding between them. What lies ahead, God knows. As many mouths, so many tales. All right, I'll go now. You go some time today or tomorrow and look in on the boy. [She rises and leaves.]
Janaki: [She watched Rupan go a while, then, rising slowly and going inside] Maya went to fetch a pitcher of water and hasn't returned even now. She must have got to chatting with someone, or... God knows the heart of another! I keep telling myself that Maya should now go on, melting away atom by atom, dissolving, with only Prakash's name on her lips. Does anyone pass widowhood by force and binding? But after Prakash's twelfth-day rites, Maya's sister came herself and asked her what her wish now was. She also broached Uttam's name. Uttam himself, they say, had told her — "I am in no way worthy of bhabhi, but my heart is full of affection and tenderness; I shall keep her like a goddess and go on worshipping her." No pressure, no compulsion — it was a formal matter. In our region this does happen. But it was heard that when she heard it, she abused her sister roundly. She called her an enemy, and threatened that if she ever spoke of it again she would never show her her face for life. God knows what was in her heart then. Was it Prakash, or Dhanvanchand, or my poor Uttam's dark complexion and plain looks? How distressed Uttam was — he went back home nine or ten days before his leave was even up. After that, for a long while, his letters did come, but mere formal, flavourless ones — only on the pretext of asking after bhabhi's welfare. Yet hearing his name, a smile never once came to Maya's lips. She has never opened her heart to me. And now Rupan says there was once some understanding with Dhanvan too. In the two years of her marriage not a word of this was ever heard. People praised Prakash's good fortune. Maya too, in those two years, stayed blooming like a flower. I never saw her downcast. She never once insisted on going to her parents'. Prakash was, as it were, her very god. ...What is one to say.
(Reaching the worship-stool, her eye falls on Prakash's barandi. She touches its fringe with a finger. Then she cleans it. As she is folding it, she hears the rattle of the pitcher. Leaving it quickly, she goes off toward the kitchen. Maya comes in, the pitcher raised on her head.)
Scene Two
[Ishar sits at the loom, drawing on the hookah. Janaki sits close by on the threshold, her back leaned against the wall.]
Janaki: I waited and waited for you yesterday.
Ishar: The Chaudhari wouldn't let me come. He said — in the bustle of the wedding I never even got the chance to sit and exchange two pleasant words. Stay tonight, he said, go tomorrow.
Janaki: The Chaudhari hasn't forgotten the old bond. The poor man is good-hearted. Tell me — did the wedding go off well?
Ishar: Yes, well enough. No stone was left unturned in entertaining the wedding party. City folk had come, the in-laws. All city sweets. Everyone marvelled. The Chaudhari gave a generous dowry too. They say there were only four trunks, but in cash and gold and silver it was beyond measure. He has matched her with city people. Some very wealthy merchant folk, it's heard.
Janaki: What work does the boy do?
Ishar: What work would the sons of nobles do, Amma? Servants are kept to do the work. Nobles are far above any concern beyond eating and dressing! It's heard there were cases of coloured liquor being brought in. They say no arrangement was made for dance and song. The Chaudhari did not seem happy. He seemed like a man cheated, and now too ashamed to speak of it to anyone. From the mouth of the boy seated on the outer wedding-dais came the smell of liquor. The pandit-priest went on reciting the mantras, while the bridegroom went on chatting with the friend beside him.
Janaki: The Chaudhari was a very shrewd man — how was he so deceived?
Ishar: Even the great are deceived, Amma. And the Chaudhari is, after all, a village man. Seeing the outer show, he was taken in. They say the Chaudhari's son didn't like this match. But the Chaudhari is of a stubborn nature. He said — the word is given; now come what may, the girl's palanquin shall go to their house.
Janaki: That's just it — they say unions are very powerful. The hawk that can see a hundred leagues does not see the snare laid right before it, and goes and gets caught in it.
Ishar: Last night the Chaudhari asked after the household. He asked about each of us, one by one, and then said — tell Janaki: Maya is young; she should not pass her widowhood so near. Find some suitable place and settle her. If it can be, do it with your own younger brother. Let it not be that you repent of it afterward.
Janaki: Why would the Chaudhari say such a thing? Didn't you ask?
Ishar: I did ask. He said — wisdom does not lie in letting the room collapse first and then building a new one; wisdom lies in this, that wherever a beam or pillar is found bending, it be changed and shored up in time.
Janaki: I can't make sense of it, Ishar! Yesterday Rupan came, the wife of Indru of the shop. She too said things of this kind. She said a certain Dhanvanchand has been seen coming and going toward the village two or three times. To lay blame on anyone without seeing it with one's own eyes is a very wicked thing. People cry out about the ways of the times, and to me she seems pure as moonlight and clean as Ganges-water. Speak softly, friend, lest Maya be hurt somewhere. If she hears, what will she think? That now the lord of her head is gone, people have begun to point a finger at her.
Ishar: Amma, if it could happen with him, that would be well and good. Poor Uttam's looks are plain — when would he ever take her fancy? And if she goes and settles somewhere else, there will be infamy, and a lifelong web of trouble too. And it is true that, in this state, how could her heart stay content in this house? No companion of her age, no playmate. No laughter, no jest. To whom is she to tell the things of her heart? This is the age of a hundred swings, of weaving plaits, of saying a hundred things and hearing a hundred. Like a flower blooming in an empty garden, what kind of a life is this poor girl's life?
Janaki: Who used to think such things here, son? In this very village we have seen women pass their widowhood, who died and wasted away in their husbands' homes, who never afterward crossed the threshold. But those were simpler times; the people were of another kind. Today everything has changed about. Where are such things now?
Ishar: One ought to move with the times, Amma. Either change the times, or else keep pace with them. Were there never re-marriages, second unions, chadar-andazis before? Is it a reproach today? Had it fallen to us, when would we ever have told her to live like a renunciate? Among Maya's poor parents' people there is no one who feels her pain. Now we alone are her in-laws, and we alone are her parents' folk. The Chaudhari's words struck my heart and mind, Amma. They do say that the counsel of a wise man, like the taste of myrobalan, comes to you later.
Janaki: But how is one to know what is in Maya's heart? Who is to ask her?
Ishar: You too are very innocent, Amma! I haven't opened the matter before you, but it has been in my heart ever since you said — all day the barandi hangs nicely on its pegs, so why at night does it come down? Does the poor barandi come down a little by itself? Someone pulls it down deliberately. With my own eyes I have seen Maya pulling the barandi down.
Janaki: But why?
Ishar: When she had that fever — did you not hear her then? In her delirium she would say: what watches have they set over me? Toward those people, a watch; toward you people, a watch. Somewhere the barandi people, somewhere the turban people.
Janaki: How many times I've said — let the bride sit a while by the worship-stool and say her prayers. But whenever she sits, she keeps her face turned the other way. Now I understand — to one sitting facing up, the barandi comes right before her. But what harm has this barandi
done her? It is the one keepsake here of my Prakash, my child, seeing which his face passes before my eyes. Before going to the front he had come, and he had hung up this barandi. He stayed two days and went, and after that he never came back. His comrade soldier brought this keepsake of his and gave it to us. I don't know why Maya is so vexed by it. The thing is beyond me, son. If it troubles her, I'll take it to that other room and keep it. I had kept it by the worship-stool only because that child of mine must by now have joined the company of the gods. So does this mean Rupan was speaking the truth?
(Both of them, startled, see that Maya is standing pressed against the inner door, listening to their words.)
Maya: What was Rupan saying, Mother ji?
(Janaki and Ishar both stay silent.)
(Seeing them astonished and silent, a faint smile came to Maya's lips. She stepped one foot forward and held out her left hand. In it was a grey envelope. Looking at Maya's face, Janaki took the envelope. Maya turned slowly away. Astonished, Ishar looked toward his mother.)
Janaki: Here — read this.
Ishar: Why, this is Uttam's letter, Amma.
Janaki: It must be his. The postman must have handed it over somewhere. The child must have forgotten it for days. Open it, read it. Turn the lamp's flame up a little.
Ishar: No, Amma — the letter is addressed to Maya Devi. And it has already been opened. But why has Maya given us this letter of hers? Since when has this correspondence been going on between brother-in-law and sister-in-law? (Ishar breaks into a smile. Janaki turns the lamp's flame up with the tongs. Ishar reads the letter.)
Maya,
After reading your letter, I no longer have the heart to raise that wall of the discarded relationship by calling you bhabhi. If my affection was pure, then this boon has been granted me. My leave has been sanctioned. I shall come this very month. I read your letter many times, and each time it felt as though some bird were rising higher and higher into the blue sky with every fresh wing-beat. Reading of Dhanvanchand's circling about, I felt both anger and laughter. But I am the physician of my own heart's anguish, and so I felt less anger at that wretch and more pity. Even now, some old scratch graven on his mind has not faded — the one that forces him, on the pretext of clients, to come to our village. But it grieved me to read that, in this misdeed of Dhanvan's, many people reckon you involved too, and spread false rumours and gossip. Maya, this itch of people to take advantage of another's helplessness is nothing new. Amma thinks you pure as moonlight — reading this, a reed of joy rose up in my life. Such a mother is got only by great good fortune. You wrote truly that, because of her, our house seems a very temple of the goddess. In such a shrine the soil of the heart is washed clean. The matter of the barandi I could not understand. Why are you afraid of that barandi? A most astonishing thing! What sort of a ghost is in the barandi, that it glares at you coming and going? It is natural that Amma should feel attachment to her brother's barandi — it is the one keepsake of her young son. When I come this time, I shall exchange it for one of my own. From my barandi there will be nothing to fear, will there? And what will poor Amma say? When she learns of this matter of ours, how happy she will be. I know — she had no grief at Prakash's dying at the front. For his death she has only pride upon pride. Her grief was for you. What she pined over was this: how will this delicate body complete so hard a journey of a lifetime? The night you rebuked your sister over the matter of me, Amma's eyes did not close for a single instant. Well — we are soldiers; we are taught that only the final victory is the true success, and that the sacrifices made and the hardships borne for it count for nothing. The rest — I shall tell Amma and elder brother when I come home. Four days is this matter of clay; let it go on dissolving its sweetness only in my heart and yours.
Your Uttam.
[Ishar, having read the letter, looked toward his mother. On her face was a silken light of joy, and her eyes had brimmed over.]
Janaki: The honour of the family is saved, son! Saying this much, she rose and went toward Maya's room.