Cast of Characters
Maa — mother of Raju and Sunaina, a level-headed woman (50–55)
Daddy (Kamleshwar) — Senior Secretary, a stickler for discipline at home (55–60)
Raju — Daddy's younger son, an aware youth (19–20)
Sunaina — Daddy's daughter, an emotional girl (22–23)
Anita — Gopal's wife, a self-respecting schoolteacher (28–30)
Gopal — Daddy's elder son, an idealist (35–38)
Scene 1
Music: Violin
Maa: Sunaina...!
Sunaina: What is it, Maa?
Maa: Did Raju have his breakfast?
Sunaina: Who has given poor Raju his breakfast yet? Let those who go to the office first get going. When is the servant to come, Maa? It's been six or seven days since he left.
Maa: These poor people are not so unreliable, daughter! The way he kept saving his wages — from that alone one could tell there was the weight of some responsibility on his mind... (pause) It's the moneyed ones who put on these shows of indifference. For them, no one's life has any worth.
Sunaina: But Maa, you didn't think of this when you were fixing my match, did you?
Maa: Who cared whether I thought of it or not?
Sunaina: Is there any use now in grieving over this? Each must suffer his own fate, Maa. What sort of ill-omened boy is there in our house? The wholesome air that keeps a home and family green and flourishing — why does that air hesitate to enter this bungalow of ours?
Maa: Often the keeping of bungalows does not suit that air, daughter.
Sunaina: But Maa, you yourself live in the bungalow — why did that keeping not come to you? Why do you stay shrunk into yourself? Why have you cast us too in this same mould of yours? Why did you let no desire of our own likes and dislikes awaken in us? Can there be a greater cruelty toward one's own children than this, Maa?
Maa: Hasn't your Daddy to go to the office today? Why hasn't the office car come yet?
Sunaina: Officers go when they please — that is their office hour. But what is Daddy to do either? He, poor man, has to do all the preparation himself. Go into his room in the morning, Maa, and help him get ready for the office. Didn't you see, in last night's TV drama, how the wife of that company's owner helped her husband get ready to go to the office?
Maa: These airs and shows I cannot manage, Sunaina.
Sunaina: You call this airs and show, Maa? This is the culture of modern society.
Maa: (each word slowly) The culture of modern society!... that is, the entertainment of the male ego? Daughter, this etiquette is the gift of a society that also has the etiquette of 'ladies first.' In our society, that etiquette of honouring woman is perhaps to be seen in the clubs. In homes — especially in these bungalows and mansions — it cannot even be spoken of.
Sunaina: (in a voice lowered with fear) Daddy is coming down. I haven't heard the horn of the office car yet. Will Daddy go to the office by taxi?
(Maa stays silent. Daddy comes to where the shoes are.)
Sunaina: Daddy, your car hasn't come yet.
Daddy: (curtly) It must have come. I myself told the driver not to sound the horn. Tell your mother I'm to have dinner out somewhere tonight. She needn't wait for me.
Sunaina: Daddy!... This evening let me go home too.
Daddy: Did their man come to fetch you? Or did some telephone call come from them?
Sunaina: (silent)
Daddy: The wretches have the pride of money. When Nand went to Canada he said that as soon as he settled there he'd write a letter and send for you — or perhaps come himself and take you. Your passport has long been ready, but that scoundrel went off and didn't write even one letter. When your father-in-law meets me at the club, he avoids my eye, or fobs me off saying Nandlal hasn't yet settled properly somewhere. The girl has been waiting three months for his letter. The owls' offspring... (goes off slowly)
[ Music ]
[ The sound of an English song rises on the tape-recorder... along with the sound of someone humming and swaying and dancing. ]
Maa: When her Daddy is home, he doesn't so much as stir. The moment he's gone, these songs of his break out, and he himself starts dancing and leaping about. (calling out) Raju — Raju!! Son, turn it down a little and come down here. Hear what I have to say.
[ Leaving the tape-recorder playing softly, Raju comes down the stairs whistling. ]
Raju: Yes, Mummy ji... your command...
Maa: Raju, what are these tapes you start playing? What sense do you make of them? One can't even tell whether they're singing or wailing the dead.
Raju: (bursts out laughing) You've said a fine thing, Mamma. In this bungalow, the matter of song and laughter — you're right, it does seem very odd. A kind of suffocation always hangs here. But Mummy, tell me this — are there tapes made and sold of weeping too? (laughs) Weeping is each one's own, Mamma; in singing and laughing, make as much fellowship as you like. Just think — where are these foreign singers from? Yet with their songs why does our heartbeat too quicken? The weight of the suffocation lifts. Here one begins to feel as though we too are getting a chance, in some pleasant place, to give our feelings air. The pleasure you get, Mummy, from humming some bhajan or doing kirtan with your eyes closed — just that same kind of relish is in these songs too.
Maa: It's not only a matter of relish, Raju; in bhajan and kirtan there is something more besides.
Raju: The next world too must be improving, Mummy; but whether the next world exists or not, one must at least have faith in it in the heart. The relish of these songs of ours has no connection with any next world, Mummy. Our dealings are only with this life. It's only after being done with this life, or grown hopeless of it, that a man thinks of the next world. You know, don't you, Mummy, that my result has come out?
Maa: I'd heard you'd passed. Why didn't you tell me?
Raju: (with a sigh) What was I to tell, Mamma. I didn't pass with good marks. What Daddy wanted didn't happen. It was just — neither god nor union with the beloved. Daddy forced his own will, made me take science. I had no interest in science. I wanted to become neither doctor nor engineer.
But in this house one has to live very helplessly. Accepting that helplessness, I became neither of this side nor of that. I've ended up like the washerman's dog.
Maa: What ill-omened talk is this you've begun? Tell me one thing — is it for this that you've stayed sulking these two years? Why had you no attachment to anyone in this bungalow except your own room? (calling) Sunaina...?
Sunaina: (from the other room) What is it, Maa?
Maa: What are you doing there alone?
Sunaina: Just looking at the new magazines.
Maa: Are you listening to Raju's talk?
Sunaina: I am, Maa. But may I ask one thing, Mummy? In people's houses there are parties over little things, get-togethers; laughter and merriment. Then why has there never been any party in our house? Why ever not?
Maa: That's because your Daddy neither likes to hold such parties in his own house, nor likes us to take part in parties held in others' houses.
Raju: Has Daddy's manner here been like this from the very start?
Maa: No, not from the start. (thinking) It's only after Sunaina's wedding that all this happened.
Raju: After Sunaina's wedding — why?
Maa: Because I opposed this match greatly. I'd heard much about that house. I knew they were great moneyed people. They have a business of lakhs, true, but about that business too people said bad things. The income-tax department raided their firm and bank lockers two or three times. There was much talk of it in the papers. But your Daddy's ideal is just... a bungalow, a mansion, a car, a bank balance...
Raju: Then? Then what happened?
Maa: What was to happen? Sunaina sits here three or four months gone, and Nandu has gone off to Canada. Nandu's father, Lala Hiralal, is angry that your Daddy didn't get Nandu a car.
Raju: Leave their matter, Mummy — first tell me this: why did Daddy fall out with you? How? When?
Sunaina: [coming in] Tell us, Maa. You keep these things hidden from us too. It's extraordinary! You smoulder in your own anguish and tell no one the thing in your heart. Not even your own son and daughter.
Maa: [with a sigh] Today I'll tell you. It's a matter of four or five years ago. The two of us were sitting in the drawing-room watching television. In those days, when your Daddy was home, we'd often sit together and watch several programmes. The day I'm speaking of, some such programme was on as comes nowadays under the name 'Legal Advice.' That day a woman went on reading out letters and asking some legal expert sitting beside her for advice about them.
Scene 2 (Flashback)
TV Woman: Shri Ramanlal will have heard the clarification of the legal position regarding his problem. He can certainly engage the services of a lawyer and fight his case in court. The next letter is written from Gandhinagar; the name of the city is not given. The writer is one Lakshmi. She has written a very long letter, levelling several charges against her husband. Some of the chief charges are these:—
"My husband is a senior gazetted officer. We have a large bungalow to live in. We live in style. The sorrow is that at home too he wants to keep that same authority. In everything he insists on having his own command obeyed. We have two sons, one daughter. The elder son was weak at his studies. He did not turn out according to their dreams. Secondly, he married a girl of a poor family of his own choice. The father turned the boy out of the house. The daughter he married to the son of a rich industrialist. In the dowry he gave everything, beyond his means. But the boy wanted a car too. The result is that the daughter is unhappy. In her in-laws' house she is dishonoured. She has to hear cutting words. The poor girl is suffering the punishment of her father's obstinacy. And now another woman has come into his life. She works somewhere. Her first husband had left her. Using his influence, he got her an undue promotion and made her some officer.
You can imagine my mental suffering. In my own home I am like a prisoner. I can neither help my children, nor —
get for myself a life of due honour. In such a state, can the law give me any help?"
Daddy: [suppressing his anger] Did you write this letter?
Maa: [fearfully] No... no... I wrote no letter. I don't know who wrote it.
Daddy: [growing uncontrollable with rage] This is my property. I created it. Who told you about my relations with that woman?
Maa: With what woman?
Daddy: With Sandhya — with whom else.
Maa: I don't know any Sandhya.
Daddy: [grinding his teeth] Wretch, putting on great innocence. The dogs that feed on my very scraps have begun barking at me. Ingrate, scoundrel of nowhere.
[ The sound of Maa weeping and sobbing. ]
Scene 3
Raju: Tell me the truth, Mummy — did you write that letter?
Maa: I don't know — who knows who wrote it.
Raju: Who was this Sandhya, Mummy? Why did Daddy take her name that day?
Maa: I know nothing. I have no idea.
Sunaina: Maa, surely bhabhi didn't write that letter?
Maa: She, why? Why would she write a letter on my behalf? [a laugh of irony] Had the poor woman wanted to write, she could have written from her own side. The cruelty was done to her. To her husband, Gopal.
Raju: But the strange thing is just this, Mummy — that all the things written in the letter match our house. No name of the letter-writer either. Your name... Gandhinagar... bungalow... officialdom... money... grand style... authority...
Maa: That's just what was astonishing, Raju. We'd only watched that TV programme together. After that very day your Daddy never spoke a word of joy or sorrow with me. He only gave orders or made complaints.
Raju: It's extraordinary, Maa! Why didn't you say boldly that you yourself had written that letter? You took fright, and so in this house your authority is left only for bearing the insult of someone's orders and complaints. Why did you accept this humiliating state?
Maa: (helplessly) What else could I do, Raju?
Raju: But Mummy, who was that Sandhya? Did Daddy really have some affair with her? Does that relationship still exist now?
Sunaina: Raju, bhabhi Anita knows Sandhya. She was not a good woman. Daddy too was certainly caught in her snare of enchantment, but bhabhi Anita had learned that the snare had now broken. Sandhya got herself transferred and has gone off somewhere else.
Maa: (changing the subject — with a sigh) Raju... how is Gopal? I'd heard he'd got a fever.
Raju: I went there yesterday. The fever's gone now, but the weakness is still there. Bhabhi didn't know my result. I told her myself; perhaps she'll come to you too.
Maa: To me? And if your Daddy learns that Anita had come, then won't trouble fall on Anita too, and on all of us?
Raju: Why would trouble fall on bhabhi, Mummy? In this family of cowards and weaklings, she was the only one who came who has a sense of self-respect and understanding too. She is the daughter-in-law of this house. Poor Gopal bhaiya was a weak man; along with him, bhabhi Anita too had to bear this humiliating treatment.
Sunaina: But it was bhabhi who started all the quarrel, wasn't it?
Raju: What was bhabhi's fault?
Sunaina: Daddy didn't want her to do the lowly job of teaching in some private school.
Raju: A lowly job? Is teaching in a school a lowly thing? Is it a base work? Are the teachers who teach in schools base and lowly people? You too studied in a school, I too studied; were those who taught us base people? Have we no respect for them in our hearts even today?
Maa: Raju, stop this prattle of yours. Sunaina, go and put the water on for tea.
Sunaina: I'll put it on, Maa... (the car horn sounds) Eh! Why has Daddy come from the office at this hour?
Raju: I'm in my room; bring me a cup of tea there. (goes)
Scene 4
( The sound of fingers knocking at the door )
Daddy: Come in.
Raju: (coming in) Yes,... Sunaina said you'd remembered me.
Daddy: Yes, I called for you. Sit down.
Raju: I'm fine. Would it be right for me to sit before you?
Daddy: What was Sunaina saying?
Raju: What was she saying?
Daddy: You were complaining about me to her...
Raju: (astonished) Complaining about you? To Sunaina? Why would I complain about you to her? When was that poor girl ever fit to hear others' complaints?
Daddy: Did you not say to her that Daddy is now bent on ruining my life too?
Raju: (thinking) No, not at all. If Sunaina said these words to you, she must have said them from her own side. I didn't say this to her. It can't be that whatever Sunaina said, you are interpreting from your own side.
Daddy: (angrily) What do you mean? That I'm twisting Sunaina's words? Did you not tell her that Daddy forced me to study science, that otherwise I had no interest in science?
Raju: Exactly, this is what I told her — I told her precisely this. Where does ruining my life come into it?
Daddy: If you think that these two years, taking science, you've been doing forced drudgery, then what else is ruining a life called?
Raju: (firmly) But isn't it a fact, Daddy, that the decision to take science was made by you alone? Even then I wanted to take Social Sciences. Hearing this, you said I wanted to ruin my life. You didn't let me take admission in the stream of my own interest. Now, with these 64–65 per cent marks, I can't take part in any competition.
Daddy: Aren't boys with 64–65 per cent marks sent for engineering training?
Raju: Only candidates of scheduled castes and so on get some concession.
Daddy: I'm not talking of scheduled castes and so on.
Raju: Apart from these, any boys of lighter merit who are chosen, or sent to outside colleges, are got in by back doors. To be chosen in open and fair competition is another matter, Dad!
Daddy: There may be some back doors too — I don't know. But I'm confident that I have my own reputation, my own influence; even by the straight route of open competition I can get you an engineering seat.
Raju: No, Daddy, I don't like that your influence and reputation be misused. Secondly, even passing through such roads of immorality and corruption, there are no very charming valleys of life ahead. I don't count the meaning of my life only in becoming an engineer. Bhaiya Gopal, because of poor health, could pass only the tenth. You got him made an overseer through your influence.
Daddy: What's the lie in that? Having done the tenth in third division, was he even fit to become an overseer?
Raju: But Daddy, rather than becoming an overseer like that, what was the harm if he'd done some work of his own somewhere? A man who thinks taking a bribe a sin — however clever an overseer he may be, he's a misfit in the department and in society too. Gopal wasn't happy having become an overseer, Daddy.
Daddy: But where did you learn these things? Your blockhead brother Gopal himself had no push; what could anyone else do for him? I know it's Anita who's made him intoxicated like this. It's she who's been intoxicated by these high ideals. She herself goes about getting harassed, and drags that blockhead along too.
Raju: Everyone has the right to walk by his own ideals, Daddy. Worldly comfort and the abundance of money are one thing — a life that gives peace to the soul is quite another. Bhaiya and bhabhi do get by in hardship, true, but the peace and love in that cramped rented house of theirs is not in the fate of these bungalows and mansions of ours. So bhabhi Anita has dragged no one about and harassed them; on the contrary, she has taught even a weak man like bhaiya the art of living with dignity. On this hard road of life she has taken him along with her too. Such self-confidence in life only bhabhi Anita could create. She is one in lakhs of women, Daddy.
Daddy: (sarcastically) I see — so you too now want to walk in her footsteps and become one in lakhs?
Raju: (silent a while) Would that... I could become fit to walk in bhabhi's footsteps... I won't fill the form for engineering, Daddy. I'll continue my studies in Arts. (goes off, shutting the door)
(Music)
(The doorbell rings two or three times)
Maa: Sunaina, see who it is.
(The sound of the latch opening)
Sunaina: (astonished) Bhabhi... you...?
Anita: Did you feel amazement at seeing me? I've come to give Maa ji and Raju the blessing for his passing. Why are you so reserved, Sunaina?
Maa: (loudly, from inside) Who is it, Sunaina?
Sunaina: (coming close, in a low voice) Bhabhi Anita has come, Maa.
Anita: I make my obeisance at your feet, Maa ji!
Maa: Anita! Oh... come, daughter, come. Let's go and sit in my room here.
Anita: Father will be inside?
Maa: Yes, inside. He didn't go to the office today. Perhaps he wasn't well. But how is it you've come today, Anita?
Anita: I'd been longing to meet you. Then I learned of Raju's passing. I thought I'd come and give the blessing, and have a sight of Maa too. I'd been longing to meet Sunaina as well.
Sunaina: But bhabhi, no one in this bungalow felt any joy at Raju's passing.
Anita: Not even Maa ji?
Maa: Why would I not, daughter? Of course I did. Only by passing can he study further. This journey of study will go on. It's by going on studying that the traveller advances.
Sunaina: But Maa, the one who has passed isn't happy either, and his face shows that he too is not happy at heart. Raju's marks didn't come up to his expectations.
Anita: Father was bound to be disappointed; Raju didn't come on the merit list. On the other side, Raju's problem was this — that he had to prepare for a race he didn't want to be part of, and the race in which he trusted he could show his ability, in that he couldn't take part. (pausing a little) But to pass the exam in first division even with science — isn't that a thing of courage, Maa ji?
Maa: Why not. In our day there was great joy even in just passing. Now there's disappointment and despair even at passing in first division. How the times have changed! But why did Raju feel no joy, Anita?
Anita: Because the goal or aim that this exam has, or is nowadays taken to have — in that Raju has no interest. He doesn't want to become an engineer.
Sunaina: But Daddy wants just that, and his influence and means can help Raju get admission for it. But let Raju be willing for it!
Anita: Sunaina, those who don't want to admit their own mistakes lay the blame on others, want to prove them the guilty ones.
Sunaina: Who doesn't want to acknowledge his own fault?
Maa: Your Daddy, who else? Has he ever even tried to see himself in the mirror of reality? In the mirrors of obstinacy one doesn't find one's true face, Sunaina! Has he ever admitted even the mistake of your match? Well, leave these things. How is Gopal? How is his health?
Anita: Nothing can be made out, Maa ji. There's acidity, and diabetes for certain. Despite this his spirit is great. There's the diet, there's the medicine too.
Maa: — and bhabhi, your little one?
Anita: The little one? He's with his grandmother. He was six months old when his grandmother took him. Now he doesn't even recognise me and Gopal. In a way we're quite free of care about him.
Maa: Anita, ever since Gopal went from here, he's never come back. Does he never remember me?
Anita: You he remembers very much. But Maa ji, your Gopal is very proud. The bungalow from which he was driven out with scorn — how is he to come there even? Do go sometime, persuade him to come. When Father drove him out like that, even then you stayed silent.
Maa: I'll make tea and bring it. (rises quickly)
Maa: (wiping her tears) What could I do, daughter!
Anita: Why do you fear so, Maa ji? Have you no place or right in this house?
Maa: The awareness to fight for rights, daughter, we never even got. We people are prisoners of our own conditioning, and so we don't even count cruelties as cruelties. Whomever we took for a god, his tyrannies too we bear as the punishment of our own fate, and go on enduring. Helplessness itself has become our life.
Anita: But Maa ji, if this helplessness stays confined to the helpless person himself, it can still be borne; but the helplessness that begins to dye others too in its own colour — then the situation grows grave. Breaking the siege of this ill-omened helplessness of this bungalow, if Gopal thought that life of poverty better than this prison, what wrong did he do?
(Sunaina is coming with the tea-tray when her Daddy comes down from his drawing-room into the verandah.)
Daddy: Sunaina, for whom are you taking this tea at this hour? Has some guest come?
Sunaina: (hesitating) Bhabhi Anita has come.
Daddy: (angrily) Why has she come? Who called her? If she was called, then instead of seating her here in the verandah, why has your Mummy taken her inside to the sitting-room? Where is Raju?
Sunaina: Raju isn't home, Daddy. Bhabhi has come to give congratulations for Raju's passing.
Daddy: To whom has she come to give congratulations? The one who ought to be congratulated for passing must be going to her house every day. It's the effect of going there that even he has begun to develop the insolence of speaking before us and making arbitrary decisions. (angrily) Raju's mother!
Maa: (after a moment's silence, coming out) Yes...
Daddy: You've heard Raju's decision, haven't you? (sarcastically) I'm trying to get him an engineering seat, and he's answered me to my face that he doesn't want to become an engineer. He's also announced the decision to continue his studies in Arts. Who is it that teaches him these lessons? Why is he bent on striking the axe on his own feet like this?
Maa: (in a calm but firm tone) If his wish isn't to study engineering, why do you force him to study only engineering?
Daddy: (angrily) Don't you see any difference between becoming an engineer and becoming a clerk?
Maa: Why wouldn't I see the difference? Of course I do — but taking Arts he can become a professor too. With ability and self-confidence he can even become a writer. And if becoming a clerk and an overseer is fated for Lala Kamleshwar's lentils, then let what the Lord wills come to pass. Why do you fret needlessly?
Daddy: Why has this schoolmistress come?
Maa: Which schoolmistress? Anita? Extraordinary! Isn't she Gopal's wife, Raju's Daddy? And isn't Gopal the eldest son of this family? Them you can drive out of the bungalow, but can the ties of their kinship too be snapped like a raw thread?
Daddy: We didn't snap the ties. Your Gopal snapped them. Had he the thought that he was the son of Secretary Kamleshwar, then... he wouldn't dishonour us like this. A marriage-tie is made with one's equals, in one's own caste and clan.
Maa: (sarcastically) But Sunaina's Daddy! The match you made looking at caste, clan and social standing — how much peace did it give us? How much did our honour rise in the caste and clan? Go, Sunaina, take the tea inside. If it's gone cold, make fresh and take it.
Daddy: We bore even that insolence of Gopal's — that, well, let him marry of his own choice; but had he the least regard for my honour, would Anita insist on this three-or-four-hundred-rupee job in a private school? Does this thing square with my dignity — that the eldest daughter-in-law of a senior Secretary of the government does schoolmistressing in a private establishment?
Maa: (patiently) What threat is there in this to your Secretary's rank? Is teaching a bad work? And if you take it as mere insistence on standing on her own feet, even then what evil is in it? It stings your ego, doesn't it — that's why? You're not accustomed to tolerate anyone else's ego before your own. That's the thing, isn't it? That's just why I think Anita's working is very fitting. Rather than being a prisoner in this palace-like jail, smouldering and fretting, to live with dignity in some raw, rented house is great good fortune.
Daddy: (angrily) Gopal's mother! Have you too gone and got caught in the snare of these hollow ideals? Perhaps you don't know that these hollow ideals stand on very weak foundations. With a single stumble that foundation can collapse. With low wings one can surely make low flights — but if there are no wings at all, then? (goes off)
(A silence falls for a while.)
Sunaina: Mummy, what was this debate you started today? Bhabhi Anita is sitting inside... what must she be thinking?
Maa: The age has changed, but your Daddy's nature hasn't. From always seeing himself in the mirror of his own ego, everyone except himself seems to him small and foolish. ...Anita...?
Anita: Yes, Maa ji!
Maa: Daughter, I'd meant to speak with him about Gopal's illness, when he started that old debate of his about his social standing and prestige.
Anita: It's just as well, Maa ji. There was no need to give him the news of Gopal's illness. Gopal too would never have liked it. You know his nature.
Sunaina: (becoming emotional) Maa, I long greatly to meet Gopal bhaiya. What kind of curse has fallen on our house? Living in the very same city, brother and sister cannot meet? High walls have risen between mother and son. Gopal's little one is being reared at his grandmother's; does the grandmother's breast not throb for him?
Maa: Anita... (with a sigh) daughter, take care of Gopal. (pausing a little) Let me say one more thing...
Anita: What is it, Maa ji?
Maa: Your job at the school is secure, isn't it?
Anita: (laughing) Jobs in private schools aren't secure, Maa ji. With a month's notice or a month's pay, the school management can dismiss any teacher. What's the matter?
Maa: I don't trust Sunaina's Daddy. He has a great grudge that even on his telling you refused to leave this school job. He takes it as a challenge to his prestige. Let it not be that with his government influence he creates some obstacle in your job!
Anita: Then what will it matter, Maa ji? Labourers suffer no lack of labour. If the job goes from one school, I'll take one in another. I'll open some nursery of my own. (with confidence) Don't worry about this. Anita cannot be defeated by such tricks. (humbly) Well — let me go, Maa ji!
(In this while Raju comes hurrying in, much alarmed.)
Raju: (from afar) Mummy... has bhabhi come here? Has she gone?
Anita: What is it, Raju?
Raju: (alarmed) Bhabhi, Gopal bhaiya isn't well. I'm going to call the doctor. You come home.
Maa: What trouble has he got, Raju?
Raju: He's had a pain in the chest. I'm off, bhabhi.
Anita: All right, Maa ji... (goes off)
Sunaina: (tearfully) What kind of chest pain has started, Maa?
Maa: (becoming tearful) What do I know, daughter. Who'll go and find out? You telephone your Daddy at the office.
Sunaina: (dials... once... twice...) Daddy isn't to be found at the office. It rings, but no one picks up.
(Music)
(The sound of a car arriving and stopping)
Sunaina: Daddy's come. But you talk to him, Maa. Don't let the car go off! Tell Daddy to have the car stopped.
Daddy: (coming in, with great arrogance) Has the schoolmistress gone? What was she saying about her job? The school's managing committee may not keep her now. What trust is there in a private school job, Gopal's mother?
Maa: Why does Anita's job grieve you so? Tell the driver not to take the motor. Gopal has fallen very ill. Who knows what trouble he's got. I must go to see him. (the sound of the car starting and going) Hé Ram, the car's gone. Get me a taxi at least. It's six o'clock now. But no word came from there. And who would send word. [ Daddy goes off ]
Scene 5 (Final)
Sunaina: Hello... who... Raju?
Raju: Sunaina, where's Mummy?
Sunaina: Mummy's standing right by me. Where are you speaking from?... Eh... the hospital...? Maa...
Raju: Mummy, can you come to the hospital? Gopal has perhaps had a heart attack. The heart specialist saw him and advised taking him to hospital. Right now he's in Intensive Care. He's somewhat better now. The doctor attending him just now looked at bhaiya's cardiograph and said it's a mild attack.
Maa: (begins to weep) Raju, the hospital is far; how can I come alone? Your Daddy...,
Raju: (cutting her off) No, Mummy, Daddy's coming here just now might not be right. You know Gopal — this is a heart-attack matter.
Anita: Is Maa ji speaking?... Give me the telephone, Raju. Maa ji, Gopal's condition is a little steadier. Do come, Maa ji. Gopal has remembered you many times.
Maa: With whom shall I come, Anita? Gopal's Daddy alone is home just now.
Anita: Bring Daddy too, Maa ji. Here everyone is asking. Why hasn't Lala Kamleshwar come yet? Where is the Secretary sahib?
Maa: But Anita, Gopal's Daddy perhaps won't have the courage to face you.
Anita: What is it, Maa? What harm have I done him? Why won't he be able to face me?
Maa: One's own ego makes a man a criminal, daughter. Today he must have been busy all day in the schemes to get your school job ended.
Anita: Oh... Even so, Maa ji, you make the effort that he certainly come. I'm sending Raju too. He'll bring you.
(Concluding music)
(Radio play)
Broadcast date: 22-11-1983