by Premchand
She went and took out the money from the niche and handed it over to Halku. Then she said, ‘You just stop tilling the land from now on. As a labourer, at least you’ll eat your roti in peace. There won’t be threats. Nice farming, this! To earn money through hard work, throw it into the furnace and on top of it put up with such threats!’
Halku took the money and went out so dejectedly that it seemed as though he was plucking out his heart and handing it over. He had scrounged to save three rupees from his wages with great difficulty. And now he was going to part with that money. With each step his head bent lower and lower with a sense of helplessness.
2
The night of Poos was pitch-black. Even the stars in the sky seemed to quiver. Halku sat under a canopy of sugar-cane leaves by his corn field and shivered in his old cotton wrap. Under the cot, his pet dog, Jabra, his sole companion now, hid his face in his belly and whined from the cold. Neither of them could sleep.
Halku pulled his knees close to his chest and said to the dog, ‘Hey, Jabra, are you feeling cold? I told you to lie down on the straw at home but you insisted on coming with me. Now face the cold, what can I do? You thought I’ll eat halva-puri here, so you came running ahead of me. Now face the music!’
Jabra lay there and wagged his tail. Then he emitted a long whine, yawned and went quiet. Perhaps he guessed that his whining was preventing his master from sleeping.
Halku stretched out his hand, ran it over Jabra’s cold shoulders and said, ‘Tomorrow don’t come with me, or you’ll be cold. This bitch of a west wind has become icy cold. Let me get up and fill a chillum. I have to pass the night somehow. I’ve smoked eight chillums already. This is the fun of working the land! And there are those to whom the cold means nothing. Thick mattresses, quilts, blankets—they have every means to chase away the cold. The cold doesn’t dare come near them. The irony is that we do all the work and others have all the fun.’
Halku got up, picked up an ember from the fire and filled his chillum. Jabra also sat up.
Halku smoked and said, ‘You want a drag? It can’t drive away the cold; it’s just a means to distract the mind.’
Jabra gazed at him with wistful eyes dripping with love.
Halku said, ‘Bear with the cold just for today. Tomorrow I’ll lay some straw here. You can snuggle into it and won’t feel the cold.’
Jabra put his front paws on Halku’s knees and brought his mouth close to his. Halku could feel Jabra’s warm breath.
Having smoked the chillum, Halku lay down again with the determination to sleep, come what may. But then his heart began to beat faster. He fidgeted and turned over. The terrible cold sat on his chest like a demon.
When he could not bear it any longer, he woke Jabra up gently, patted his head and made him lie down in his lap. The dog had a foul smell but he hugged him close and experienced a comfort he had not felt for the last several months. Jabra probably thought he was in heaven. And Halku’s pure soul did not feel even a trace of aversion for the dog. He would have hugged his most intimate friend or brother like this. He was not sad about the helplessness that had driven him to this state. No! This unusual friendship seemed to open all the doors of his soul, and each particle of his being dazzled with light.
Suddenly Jabra sensed the presence of an animal. This injected him with new energy and the cold wind became trivial. He got up energetically, left the shed and barked. Halku called after him a couple of times affectionately but he did not return. He circled around the field and barked. Even if he did return right away, he would run back to his position the very next moment. His sense of duty did not allow him to rest for a second.
3
Another hour passed. The night seemed to infuriate the chilly wind. Halku got up and buried his head in his knees, which were pulled up close to his chest. Yet there was no relief from the cold. It seemed as though his blood had frozen, that instead of blood it was the chill that flowed in his veins. He peeped at the sky to gauge how much of the night was left. Saptarshi had not yet covered half its course in the sky. Only when it was overhead would dawn begin to break. There was still more than a watch of the night left.
A stone’s throw from Halku’s field was a mango orchard. Autumn had set in and the ground was strewn with fallen leaves. Halku thought of going there, gathering the leaves, setting them alight and warming himself by the flame. If anyone saw me gathering the leaves at night they would think that I was a ghost. There could also be some wild beast lurking there. But it was unbearable to stay put in that condition.
He went up to the lentil field nearby and pulled up a couple of plants. He made a broom out of them and, holding a burning cow-dung cake in one hand, advanced towards the orchard. As Jabra saw him approach, he went up to him and began to wag his tail.
Halku said, ‘I can’t bear it any more, Jabru. Come, let’s gather leaves from the orchard and warm ourselves. When we feel comfortable, we’ll come back and sleep. The night is yet long.’
Jabra whined to express his assent and began to walk ahead towards the orchard. It was pitch-dark in the orchard and the merciless wind swept over the leaves. Dewdrops were trickling down the trees, making a tip-tap sound.
Suddenly a draught of wind wafted in bearing the scent of henna flowers.
Halku said, ‘What a nice scent, Jabru! Do you also get the smell?’
Jabra had encountered a bone and was busy chewing it.
Halku put the burning cow-dung cake down on the ground and began to gather flowers. Soon, there was a huge pile. His hands were shaking, his bare feet seemed to be melting away. But he was making that massive pile. He would burn the cold in that bonfire and reduce it to ashes.
Some moments later the pile was lit up. The flames reached up to the tree above and were touching its leaves. In the restless light of the flame the massive tree seemed to carry the bottomless darkness on its head. In the bottomless sea of darkness, the flame seemed like a boat cruising gently on it.
Halku was warming himself sitting by the fire. After a little while, he took his wrap and put it under his arms. Then he stretched his legs as though he was throwing out a challenge to the wind to do its worst. Having vanquished the unbounded power of the cold, he was finding it difficult to control his pride of victory. He said to Jabra, ‘Hey Jabra, I hope you’re not feeling cold any more?’
Jabra whined as if to say, Shall we bear with the cold always?
‘Why didn’t we think of it earlier? It would’ve saved us from the terrible cold.’
Jabra wagged his tail.
‘Now, come and jump over the fire. Let’s see who can do that. If you burn yourself, son, I am not going to apply balm to your wound.’
Jabra stared at the bonfire with wistful eyes.
‘Don’t say anything to Munni tomorrow; she’ll kick up a storm.’
Saying this, he leapt over the fire and landed safely on the other side. The flames barely licked his feet but that didn’t matter. Jabra went around the fire and stood by his side.
Halku said, ‘Come on, not like that. Jump over the fire.’
He jumped over it and crossed to the other side.
4
The leaves had been burnt. The orchard was again enveloped in darkness. Embers behind the ashes lit up with each gust of wind. And then in the next moment, it was dark again.
Halku covered himself with the sheet once again and, sitting by the hot ashes, hummed a song. His body was warm now, but as the chill intensified, he felt more and more lethargic.
Suddenly, Jabra began to bark loudly and ran towards the field. Halku suspected that a horde of animals had strayed into his field. It was probably a group of antelopes. One could clearly hear them running all over the place. Then it seemed as if they were eating up the harvest. He could hear them chewing the cud.
He said to himself, ‘No, while Jabra is around, no animal can enter the field. He will tear them to pieces. I must be dreaming. See, I can hear nothing now. How I got tricked!’
He called out loudly, ‘Jabra, Jabra.’
Jabra continued to bark. He didn’t come to him.
Once again Halku heard the animals chewing up the plants. He could no longer delude himself. He hated having to move from his place. How comfortably he was sitting there! To go to the fields and chase the animals in the freezing cold was unbearable. He didn’t budge from his spot.
He called out louder, ‘Liho, liho.’
Jabra barked once again. The marauding animals were destroying the field. The harvest was ripe and ready. What a good harvest it was! But these wicked animals were ruining it.
Halku made up his mind and took a couple of steps. But suddenly the cold blast of wind smote him like a scorpion’s sting, and so he returned to the half-extinguished fire. He poked the ashes and stretched his limbs to warm them in the fire.
Jabra was now barking at the top of his voice. The antelopes had cleaned up the field and Halku was sitting peacefully by the hot ashes. Lethargy bound him like so many ropes from all sides.
He tied the wrap around him and lay down on the hot earth beside the ashes.
By the time he woke up in the morning, the sun was up in the sky and had lit up the place. Munni was saying, ‘Will you keep on sleeping today? You made yourself comfortable here, and over there the entire harvest has been ruined.’
Halku got up and said, ‘Have you come from the field?’
Munni said, ‘Yes, the entire field has been ruined. And you’re sleeping like a log! What came of you building the shed?’
Halku made excuses. ‘I was dying, and you’re only thinking about the field. I had such a tummy pain that I could not think of anything else.’
Both went to the field together and saw the entire field pillaged. Jabra was stretched out on the earth under the shed. It seemed as though life had ebbed out of him.
Despair shadowed Munni’s face. But Halku was happy.
Munni said thoughtfully, ‘We’ll have to work as wage earners to repay the debt now.’
Halku said light-heartedly, ‘At least I’ll not have to lie down here in the chilly nights.’
Translated from the Hindi by M. Asaduddin
The Shroud
1
The father and son were sitting right in front of the entrance to the shack beside a fire that had long gone out. Inside, Budhia, the son’s young wife, was writhing in labour pains. Her heart-rending cries made both the father and son hold their hearts. It was a desolate, wintry night and the whole village was enveloped in darkness.
‘She won’t last, it seems’,’ said Ghisu. ‘She has been tossing and turning the whole day. Go in and see what’s wrong.’
‘Why doesn’t she just die if she has to? What’s there to see?’ Madho whined piteously.
‘You are so cruel. You spent a whole year with her happily, and now you’re turning your face away from her.’
‘I can’t bear to see her writhing in pain, flailing her hands and legs.’
Ghisu and Madho were Chamars by caste, and were treated with contempt by the whole village. For every day that Ghisu worked, he shirked his duty for three days. But the real shirker was Madho, who sat and puffed at the chillum for an hour after each hour of work that he put in. That was why no one hired them. They wouldn’t seek work if they had even a fistful of grain at home. Only when they’d missed a couple of meals did Ghisu climb a tree to gather some dry branches, which Madho carried to the market to sell. As long as that money lasted, they simply roamed about. Once they were faced with starvation again, they would gather dry wood or seek some other work.
There was no dearth of work in the village. The peasants who lived there could have given them all kinds of jobs, but they called them only when they were desperate and had no option but to employ both to get the work done, work that could otherwise have been accomplished by one person. Had the father–son duo been sadhus, they wouldn’t have been required to practise self-restraint to attain contentment. It was second nature to them.
A strange life they led! They had nothing in the house except for a couple of clay utensils. They covered their nakedness in tattered rags. Even though they were free from the temptations of life, they were burdened with debt. They listened to people’s insults and abuses with perfect equanimity. They were so destitute that people lent them things without any hope of getting them back. They would enter other people’s fields, steal potatoes and peas, and roast them to fill their stomachs. Or they would uproot a few sugar cane stalks and suck the juice through the night.
Ghisu had been living this spartan life for sixty years, and now Madho, like a truly obedient son, was following in his father’s footsteps. Rather, he outdid his father in this regard. At that hour as well, sitting by the fire, they were roasting potatoes that they had stolen from somebody’s field.
Ghisu’s wife had died a long time ago. Madho had married only the previous year. This woman had brought some order to the family. She ground wheat or chopped grass and somehow managed to get together a seer of flour to feed these two shameless rascals. Since she had arrived, they had become lazier and more laid-back than before. They had even started giving themselves airs. If someone wanted to hire them, they wouldn’t show any interest, and then demand double the wages. This woman had been tossing and turning in mortal labour pain since morning, but the father and son seemed to be waiting for her to die so that they could have a good night’s sleep.
As he peeled the potatoes, Ghisu said, ‘Just go in and see what’s wrong. She must be possessed by an evil spirit. The exorcist will demand no less than a rupee if you send for him. Where will we get the money from?’
Worried that if he went in, Ghisu might polish off most of the potatoes, Madho replied, ‘I’m afraid to go in.’
‘Afraid of what? I’m right here.’
‘Why don’t you go in and see?’
‘When my wife died, I didn’t budge from her side for three days . . . She’ll feel shy, won’t she? I have never looked at her face, how can I look at her bare body today? She wouldn’t know how to react. If she sees me, she’ll go stiff with embarrassment.’
‘I wonder what we will do if the child comes. Dry ginger, jaggery, oil—we have nothing in the house.’
‘Everything will come. If God gives a child, those who don’t give a paisa now will give something on their own. I had nine sons. There was never anything in the house, but things worked out fine each time.’
It was not surprising to come across such a way of thinking in a society where the condition of those who toiled day and night was not much better than the condition of these two, and where those who took advantage of the weaknesses of the peasants were much better off than the peasants themselves.
Ghisu, it seems, was shrewder than ordinary peasants, and rather than joining their thoughtless herd, he had enlisted himself in the group of the sly and crafty ones. However, he didn’t have the ability to use the mores of the crafty to his advantage, and that is why the others in his group had gone on to become leaders and headmen in the village whereas everyone pointed accusing fingers at him. Still, he had one consolation: no matter how wretched his condition, he, unlike other peasants, was able to evade their back-breaking labour and no one could take advantage of his dumb simplicity.
The duo peeled the potatoes and hastily popped them into their mouths. Starving since the previous day, they didn’t have the patience to let them cool. The outer part of the potatoes didn’t feel too hot, but as they dug their teeth in, the hot insides scalded their tongues, palate and throat. The safest thing to do at that moment was to gulp down the burning ember hurriedly and consign it to a place where it would cool down soon enough. So they kept gobbling the potatoes frantically even as tears streamed down their faces from the effort.
Ghisu was reminded of the Thakur’s marriage, which he had attended twenty years ago. He remembered that extraordinary feast to this day. He said, ‘I can never forget it. Never have I been to another feast like that, where I could have such a bell
yful. The bride’s family fed everyone, big and small, puris fried in pure ghee. And there was curd, three kinds of dry saag, one spicy curry, chutney, sweets and many other things. I can’t tell you how I relished it! There was no one to stop you. You could demand anything you wanted and eat as much as you liked. People gorged so much that there was no space for even a drop of water in their stomachs. But the servers kept on dishing out piping hot, fragrant kachoris. They didn’t listen to you even if you said no or raised your hand to restrain them. And when people finished eating and rinsed their mouths, they were served paan as well. But I had no desire left for paan as I could barely stand! I somehow managed to reach home and stretched out on my blanket . . . the Thakur was large-hearted indeed!’
Madho listened to the description of the sumptuous list of delicacies with relish, and said, ‘I wish someone would feed us like that now.’
‘Who’ll feed you now? Those times were different. Nowadays everyone is saving money. Stingy in marriages and weddings, stingy in rites and rituals. What are they going to do with all the money they grab from poor people, I ask you. They are not tight-fisted when it is a question of grabbing, they are so only when it comes to giving.’
‘You must’ve stuffed yourself with at least twenty puris?’
‘More than twenty. I was a hefty fellow. You aren’t even half the size I was.’
They finished the potatoes and drank some water. Then they covered themselves with their dhotis, tucked their knees up against their chests and went off to sleep right there beside the ashes of the fire, like two huge, coiled-up pythons.
Budhia was still writhing in pain.
2
The next morning, Madho went inside the shack to find his wife’s body stiff and cold. Flies were buzzing over her face. She was covered with dust and her two stony eyes were staring vacantly upwards. The child in her womb had died.
