by Premchand
Surprised, Shankar asked, ‘When did I borrow wheat from you? And how has it become five and a half mann? You seem to forget, I never take so much as an ounce from anyone, nor keep a paisa of debt.’
‘It is because of your greed that you are in such a bad state today,’ the priest said and then mentioned the one and a quarter ser of wheat Shankar had borrowed from him seven years ago. Shankar was amazed. ‘Oh, my god!’ he said to himself. ‘I have given him a share from my harvest countless number of times, and what has he ever done for me? Whenever he has shown up at my door on any occasion—good or bad—I have always given him a token sum of money. But look at his greed! He has been sitting on that one and a quarter ser of wheat like a hen sits on an egg and today it has become a ghost that wants to gobble me up! Had he even mentioned it in all these years, I would have measured exactly one and a quarter ser of wheat and given it to him. Was it for this day that he kept silent for all these years?’
To the priest, he said, ‘I may not have specified that I was returning the wheat I borrowed from you but several times when you came to take your share of the harvest I would give you extra—sometimes one ser, sometimes two. Now you are asking for five and a half mann; where am I to get that?’
The priest answered, ‘You can give away whatever you might please; that is extra. But you must pay up what is written in the account book; that is fixed. There is no account of what you have given. You say you gave four times the share of the harvest; maybe you did. But in my account book, there is a sum of five and a half mann of wheat written against your name. You get whoever you want to look at it and check the calculation. I will cross your name the day you settle your account; or else the amount will keep increasing.’
Shankar answered, ‘Why are you troubling a poor man like me? I have barely enough to eat; where will I get so much wheat from?’
‘That’s for you to decide. I will not leave even one ounce. If you don’t pay in this world, I shall take it from you in the other world.’
Shankar shook with fear. An educated man like me would have said, ‘Fine, take it in the other world, the measures of weight won’t be more there.’ But Shankar was not the clever, argumentative kind of person. A debt was bad enough, but owing it to a Brahmin . . . ! ‘If my name remains in a Brahmin’s account book, I shall go straight to hell!’ the very thought terrified him. He said, ‘I will give whatever I owe you in this world itself; why should I wait for the other world? This birth is bad enough, why should I sow thorns for my next life too? But I must say, this is not fair. You have made a mountain out of a seed of rye. You are a Brahmin; you shouldn’t do such things. You should have asked for it then, not waited for it to become such a huge burden. I shall give you whatever you demand, but you will have to answer for it before god.’
The priest answered, ‘You should be scared of facing god, I have no reason to. When I go to face god, I shall be among my brothers. Hermits, ascetics, gods—they are all Brahmins. If something goes against me, we shall take care of it. So, tell me, when are you going to pay up?’
‘I don’t exactly have it lying at home. I can give it only after I have borrowed it from someone.’
‘That is not acceptable to me. It has been seven years already. I can’t give you another day extra. If you can’t return the wheat, sign these papers.’
‘I have to return what I owe; it matters very little to me whether you take the wheat or the papers. What is the amount you will charge for the wheat?’
‘The same as the market price. Instead of the five and a half mann, I shall charge you only for five and a quarter.’
‘Why leave the quarter? I don’t want to owe you anything and be held responsible in my next life.’
When the amount was calculated, it worked out to sixty rupees. A document was prepared for sixty rupees, with interest at three rupees. If Shankar didn’t pay up in a year, the interest amount would climb to two and a half rupees extra. The stamp cost eight annas and Shankar had to pay for drawing up and drafting the document.
The entire village criticized the priest, but no one could say it to his face. Everyone needed something from a moneylender. No one wanted to get into any trouble with him.
III
Shankar worked hard for a year. He had promised himself that he would pay the amount before its due date. Earlier, food would be cooked in his home only in the evening; during the day the family would survive on parched gram. In the past year, that had stopped too. Roti was now made in the evenings for the little boy. The only money Shankar used to earlier spend on himself was a paisa’s worth of tobacco every day. When he took his oath, he stopped that bad habit too. He threw away his pipe, broke his hukka and smashed the tobacco container into little pieces. His clothes were already quite tattered; now they seemed to have disappeared from sight altogether. He would spend the bitterest cold winter nights by sitting beside the fire. The result of this extreme self-control was beyond his expectations. By the end of the year he had collected sixty rupees. He thought he would give the money to the priest and tell him he would get the rest as soon as possible. After all, it was only a matter of another fifteen rupees. Wouldn’t he, after all, agree to even that? He took the sixty rupees and put them at the priest’s feet. Panditji asked in surprise, ‘Have you borrowed them from someone?’
Shankar replied, ‘No, my lord. Because of your blessings, I have been able to earn good wages this year.’
‘But there are only sixty rupees here.’
‘Take this now; I will return the rest in the next two or three months and then you can set me free.’
‘I shall set you free only when you have returned every last cowrie you owe me. Go and get the fifteen rupees you still owe me.’
‘Have pity on me; I stay hungry all day, in the evenings too sometimes I get to eat, sometimes I don’t. I live in this village. I am not going to run away with your money.’
‘I don’t want to get into the trouble of chasing you. If I don’t get all my money back, I shall start charging interest at the rate of three and a half rupees. You can take your sixty rupees back with you, or you can leave them with me.’
‘All right; keep the money. I’ll go and try to organize fifteen rupees from somewhere.’
Shankar tried his best but no one gave him the money— not because people didn’t trust him or they didn’t have the money to give, but because no one had the courage to take away the priest’s easy target.
IV
Every action has a reaction. When despite working so hard for an entire year, Shankar could still not free himself from debt, his determination turned naturally into despair. He understood that if his year-long hardships could fetch him no more than sixty rupees, there was no way that he could possibly save twice as much in the coming year. If he must totter under the burden of debt, it mattered little whether the load on his head weighed one mann or a mann and a quarter. His enthusiasm to repay the debt lessened. He began to hate hard work.
Hope is the mother of enthusiasm. Hope has strength and power. It is the only energy that drives the world. Shankar became hopeless and, therefore, sad. Those needs that he had kept at bay for the past year were no longer like beggars who came and stood at his door; they turned into evil spirits that sit on your chest and refuse to go away till they have got what they want from you. There is a limit to the patches you can put on your clothes. Now when Shankar received his wages, he would not hold back a single rupee. Sometimes he would buy clothes, at other times something to eat. Where earlier he used to only smoke tobacco, now he picked up the bad habits of smoking ganja and charas. He was in no hurry to repay the loan. He acted as though he didn’t owe anyone a single paisa. Earlier he would go to work even when he had fever; now he looked for excuses not to work.
Three years passed in this manner. The priest didn’t ask for his money even once. Like a clever hunter, he waited for the right occasion to take aim. It was against his policy to alert the prey to the danger lying in
wait.
One day, the priest sent for Shankar and showed him the accounts. After deducting the sixty rupees already deposited, there were still 120 rupees owing against Shankar’s name.
Shankar said, ‘I can give you that sort of money in some other birth, not in this one!’
‘But I shall take it in this very lifetime. If you can’t return the capital, you must at least pay the interest.’
‘I have nothing except one bullock; take that if you want.’
‘What will I do with your bullock? You still have a lot to give me.’
‘What else is there?’
‘You are there. After all, you go somewhere to work, don’t you, and I too have to keep someone to care for my lands. You start working for me to pay off your interest and return the capital whenever you can. The truth is that now you can no longer work for anyone else till you return all the money you owe me. No one would be willing to employ you, knowing that you owe me money. You have no property, nothing that you can keep with me instead of the money you owe me. So how can I let you off? Who is there to ensure that you will pay my interest amount every month? When you can’t work anywhere else to return the interest amount, no one can imagine that you will ever return the capital.’
‘If I work for you to repay the interest, what shall I live on?’
‘You have a wife and children; have they had their hands chopped off that they must sit idle at home? Let them work too. I shall give you half a ser of barley to eat every day. Once a year I shall give you a blanket and also get a quilted jacket stitched for you to keep you warm. What else do you need? While it is true that others paid you six annas, I don’t really need you that much. I am employing you only to help you repay your loan.’
Shankar was lost in deep thought. Then he said, ‘This sounds like life-long slavery.’
‘You can call it slavery, or you can call it wages. But I am not going to leave you till you return the money you owe me. If you run away, your son will have to return it. Though if no one remains from your family, it will be a different matter then.’
There was no appeal against such an announcement. Who would step forward to help a labourer? There was nowhere to take shelter or run to. Shankar began to work for the priest from the next day itself. For the sake of a quarter and one ser of wheat, he had to wear the chains of slavery for the rest of his life. If there was anything to give him comfort it was the thought that he was being punished for a previous birth. His wife had to do chores she had never done before. His children were nearly always hungry. And Shankar could do nothing except quietly watch them suffer. Like a curse of the gods, those grains of wheat were never to leave his life.
V
Shankar worked for the priest as an unpaid slave for twenty long years till he left this world that had treated him so badly. At the time of his death, a sum of 120 rupees was still written against his name. The priest didn’t consider it appropriate to trouble him in the other world; after all, he wasn’t such a cruel man! Instead, he caught hold of Shankar’s son. The young man still works for the priest. When he will be set free, whether he will be set free or not—god alone has the answer.
Dear Readers, do not treat this as a work of fiction. This is based on a true story. The world is not empty of such Shankars and such priests.
6
The Price of Milk
Most big cities have midwives, doctors and nurses, but in villages the local sweepress still rules over the labour room. And the situation is not likely to change in the near future. Babu Maheshnath, the zamindar of his village and an educated man who agreed that the state of affairs needed to be changed, was helpless when it came to making changes in the way babies were brought into this world. Most nurses refused to come to his village to deliver his baby, and the ones who agreed to come after a lot of persuasion, asked for so much money that poor Babu sahib had to return home empty-handed. With nurses charging such fees, he couldn’t even think of approaching a lady doctor. He would have to sell half his lands to afford her fee! So, after three daughters, when a fourth child was on its way, he had no choice but to fall back on the services of Gudarh, the sweeper and Bhungi, his wife.
Babies are usually born at night. At close to midnight, a servant was sent to beat the door of Gudarh’s hut so loudly that he woke up the entire neighbourhood. This time it wasn’t a girl and there was no reason to call out in a feeble voice.
For this occasion, preparations had been going on in Gudarh’s home for months. If it was a girl again, the husband and wife were scared they would get nothing more than the usual one rupee and a sari. How they had argued and laid bets for months! The wife would say, ‘If it isn’t a boy this time, I won’t show you my face ever again. Yes, yes, I tell you, I won’t show my face here ever again. All the signs say it will be a boy this time.’ And Gudarh would say, ‘You wait and see, it will be a girl again. I will shave off my moustache if it is a boy this time.’
Now, hearing the loud beating of the door, Bhungi laughed delightedly and said, ‘Now get your moustache shaved! Didn’t I say it would be a boy? But you wouldn’t listen to me. Let me shave your moustache with my own hands; I will make sure I don’t leave a single hair.’
‘I will shave my own moustache. Do you think it won’t grow back? Three days from now, it will be back, you wait and see. But, remember, I will take half of what you get as reward.’
Bhungi wagged her thumb at him, handed him their three-month-old son and walked away with the zamindar’s servant.
Gudarh called after her, ‘Where are you running off to? I want to go with the others to join the celebrations at the zamindar’s house. Who will take care of the baby?’
Bhungi kept walking away as she answered, ‘Put him to sleep on the ground. I will feed him when I return.’
II
This time Bhungi was welcomed in Maheshnath’s house with a great show of hospitality. Every morning, a sweet, nourishing milky drink would be prepared for her; in the afternoon there would be puri and halwa and more of the same in the evening and at night. Gudarh too would be fed heartily. Bhungi could get away barely once or twice a day to feed her own son. Arrangements were made for extra milk for her little boy. Bhungi’s own milk was exclusively for the Babu sahib’s fortunate son. This continued even twelve days after the baby’s birth.* The mistress was a strong, healthy woman, yet this time, due to some strange reason, she could not nurse her baby herself. Earlier, when the three daughters had been born, she had given milk in such abundance that the poor little girls had suffered from indigestion! But this time, there was not a drop of milk. So, Bhungi, the midwife, was asked to do double duty as wet-nurse.
The mistress would tell Bhungi, ‘Nurse my baby well and you won’t have to lift a finger ever again for as long as you live. I will make sure that you get five bighas free land. Even your grandchildren will live a life of comfort and plenty.’
Meanwhile, Bhungi’s own son, unable to digest the alien milk, would continually throw up. Day by day, he steadily lost weight and became weak.
Bhungi would tell the mistress, ‘I am telling you in advance—I will take bracelets at your son’s head-shaving ceremony.’
And the mistress would answer, ‘Yes, yes. You will get them. There is no need to threaten. Do you want silver or gold ones?’
‘If I go around wearing silver bracelets, what would people say?’
‘All right, you will get gold bracelets.’
‘And when your son gets married, I will take a necklace for myself and silver wristbands for my husband.’
‘You will get those as well. May god show us that day!’
Bhungi occupied a high position in the household, second only to the mistress. All the maids, cooks and other domestic servants gave her due respect; even the mistress allowed herself to be moved by Bhungi and her opinions. Once, Bhungi even scolded the master of the house. There was some discussion about the caste system and Maheshnath happened to say, ‘Untouchables will always remain untouch
ables. No matter whatever else might change in this world, you can’t turn untouchables into civilized human beings.’
Hearing this, Bhungi retorted, ‘Master, it is the untouchables who make it possible for the high and mighty to live like civilized human beings.’
At any other occasion, Bhungi would not have had a single hair left on her head for such disrespect. But today, Maheshnath simply laughed and brushed aside the incident.
III
Bhungi’s rule could not last beyond one year. The village pandits objected to the infant drinking the milk of an untouchable and Moteram Shastri, a learned Brahmin, suggested a suitable penance must be made for this awful sin. The nursing was stopped immediately, but Maheshnath refused to consider the idea of a penance. He scolded the pandit, ‘Till yesterday my boy lived on the life blood of that sweepress, so he must be totally impure too. I must say that’s some religion you have!’
Shastriji answered with a toss of his topknot, ‘It is true, till yesterday he lived on the blood of that untouchable woman. He was nourished on meat since she ate meat. But that was yesterday and that is over and done with. We are concerned about today. At the Jagannath Puri temple, the high castes and the untouchables sit together for a communal feast, but the same cannot be done here. When we fall ill, we may eat without taking a bath or eat a plain dish of dal and rice. But when we are well once again, we go back to our normal way of life. We have different sets of rules—for ordinary, everyday circumstances and extraordinary ones.’
‘Do you mean religion is a changeable thing—sometimes one thing, at other times something else?’
‘Of course. The religion of a king is different from his subjects, just as a rich man’s religion is different from a poor man’s. Rajas and maharajas can eat what they want, marry whomever they want—there is nothing to stop them. They are superior. Rules and restrictions are for ordinary people.’
