Greatest Short Stories by Mulk Raj Anand Page A

by Jaswant, on behalf of his father, saying, that as Lajwanti had run away, without permission from her husband or her parents-in-law, the clothes she had brought on her wedding were being returned and that no one in Delhi was now willing to see her ‘black face’.
    Old Hari had already been trying to arrange for someone to look after his buffalo, his son and his daughter, so that he could take Lajwanti back to her parents-in-law. He had sent for the midwife, who had delivered all these children, from Pataudi proper, because he did not know anyone in the small village, who would oblige, without the payment of some cash.
    Fortunately, the midwife Champa, arrived on the same morning after the post card was received. And she was more than willing, to take on the job of looking after the household.
    ‘Why,’ she said, ‘I had hoped to see our Lajo with belly. And I had waited to be called to her bedside, so that I could deliver her of a son. And, now, my loved one, you are here, without a sign in your eyes of the coming of the happy event. If only for the sake of the soul of your dear mother, go, hurry back. And come soon with your lap full of a child…’
    ‘I am putting my turban at your feet,’ said old Hari Ram to Chaudhri Ganga Ram, literally removing his enormous crown of cloth from his head and placing it on the shoes of his daughter’s father-in-law.
    “Oh, come and sit here with me;” answered Chaudhri Ganga Ram, brushing the beadstead with his left hand as he smoked the hookah under the shade of a neem tree.
    Lajwanti crouched a little way away, with her face covered by her head cloth and averted her gaze from her father-in-law towards the torrid fields; Her heart was in her mouth, lest her brother-in-law, Jaswant, might suddenly appear form the barn, or even her mother-in-law, come on the scene suddenly before the father-in-law had forgiven her. At the same time, she knew that there would be no forgiveness, but only a reluctant nod to indicate that she could stay.
    The nod of approval was, however, long in coming. For Chaudhri Ganga Ram kept silent, after having lifted Hari Ram to sit by him, and only his hookah spoke a little agitatedly.
    Meanwhile, Lajwanti felt the sweat gathering on the nape of her head and flowing down her spine. And she looked at her blessed Maina in the cage to see if the bird was not dead. The journey had been easier this time, because they had come by bus from Pataudi to Gurgaon and then caught the connection from Gurgaon to the bus stop half a mile away from the little village of her father-in-law. And as the bird seemed still, she spoke to her in wordless words:
    ‘My Maina tell me what will happen now? My heart flutters, as you often do when you are frightened of the cat coming to eat you. And I do not know if Jaswant will relent and not pursue me any more. But perhaps now that my father has brought me back, I will allow myself to be eaten. Only the humiliation will be complete now. Oh if only I had warmed to him and not thought of my own man who would never have known! I am really defeated. And even words are no use… And yet within me there is desire, and there is life — a river of feelings like the ancient Saraswati river which has gone underground and disappeared from the surface… How shall I control those feelings, those prisoners, trying to burst out…’
    She opened her eyes to make sure. The vision was real.
    Involuntarily, her eyes closed and a sigh got muffled into the folds of her headcloth. Sparks like stars shot out of the darkness of her head, and the agitation of nerves pushed up a copious sweat all over her. She knew that the constellations in the sky above her were ominous.
    ‘So the dead one has turned up!’ the mother-in-law ’s voice came, as the old woman returned from the well with one. pitcher on her head and another one on her left arm. The heavy breathing of the woman, forced to fetch and carry and do all the chores in the absence of Lajwanti,