Greatest Short Stories by Mulk Raj Anand

her legs as though he saw the ghost of his mother standing by the door. To be sure, Lajwanti looked the split image of her mother. Only mother had become sallow with lungs, while Lajo’s colouring was pucca brown, and gave richness to the small even face, with the fine nose, flawed by a big tatoo mark on her chin.
    Tears welled into Lajwanti’s eyes at the warmth of the boy ’s embrace.
    ‘Look at this poor Maina,’ she said. ‘She had come all the way with me from New Delhi.’
    The young boy grabbed the cage from his sister ’s hand and soon forgot about Lajwanti in the effort to make the bird talk.
    ‘I should give her some lentils to eat and a little water,’ Lajwanti said, sitting on the threshold of the verandah.
    ‘Then she might talk to you… Though, I hope she does not say too much… The neighbours will know everything…’
    For now that she was here, she wanted her return, somehow, to remain a private occurrence. She knew, of course, that everyone in a small place knew everyone else’s business. And she had no hope of escaping censure from the tongues which had wagged when, before her marriage, she had played openly with boys of her own age, and seldom cared to cover her head with her dupatta because she did not want to look like a ghost. All the elders called her ‘Man Lajo,’ while the boys called her, ‘Meena Kumari’ after the film heroine she resembled. She wanted as she sat there, to know what was in her father ’s heart — whether he had understood her mysterious will, and the instinct which had inspired her always to do the odd things. He had always told her that he was sorry he had named her Lajwanti, which means sensitive plant, because she has lived up to her name. Indu pushed a cup of water into her bird’s cage. And lo! the Maina began to talk.
    ‘Lajo, what does she say?’ the boy asked.
    Lajwanti smiled, even as she looked at the torrid sky.

    After her father returned from the well, he tied the buffalo and put what cattle food Indu had chopped up before the animal. As the boy had not cut enough, he took the chopper and began to prepare more. He was not the kind to scold anyone, and least of all did he want to blame his son for getting excited about his elder sister.
    When the buffalo had been looked after, he proceeded to soak the lentils for the evening meals and proceeded to light the fire.
    ‘I will do all that, Bapu: Lajwanti said.
    ‘Daughter, it does not matter,’ he answered and stubbornly went on with the chores. And, turning to his son, he said,’ ‘give your sister a mat to sit on.’
    Imperceptible as were his feelings behind the mask of his calm, wrinkled face, she saw a pallor on his lips as he said this, and she knew that she was not wanted. That mat was only given to guests.
    The courtyard was filled with shadows long before the fire in the sky became ashes. Lajwanti could see the clouds tinted red as though the world had witnessed some gruesome murder.
    And, frightened of her own self, she tried to hold her breath.
    ‘Sister, I have brought you a pitcher of water to bathe with, ‘Indu said.
    Before Lajwanti could answer, Moti had been disturbed by her brother’s voice and awakened, whining.
    Lajwanti leaped forward to her and embraced the child, consoling her.
    ‘Lajo,’ her father said, ‘The children want a mother. And I would have kept you here and not given you away, if people had not begun to talk about you…’ He paused after this statement for a long time, and then after blowing at the hearth fire, he continued: Now, I am both father and mother to them… and, as for you, I will take you back to your parents-in-law’s house. I shall fall at their feet and ask them to forgive you. The disgrace of your widowhood without your becoming a widow is unbearable… They will only call you ugly names here… They do not know that you are ‘sensitive plant’…

    Two days later, a post card came addressed to Shri Hari Ram, father of Lajwanti, written