Godan [antikvár]

CHAPTER I After serving the two bullocks with feed and water Hori Ram said to his wife, Dhania, "Send Gobar to hoe the sugar cane. I am going out and may return late. Hand me the staff." Dhania had been making cow-dung cakes and her hands were smeared with the dung. "What's the hurry," she said, "Have something before you go." Hori puckered up his wrinkled brow. "You talk about retresh-ments when I am worried about the delay. If I am late I won't be able to meet the Master. If he sits down to his prayers I may have to wait for hours." "That's why I say, have something," Dhania said, "Besides, what's the harm if you don't go to-day. You went to him only the day before yesterday." "Why do you try to meddle with things which are beyond you?" Hori said impatiently. "Give me the staff and mind your chores. It's all due to keeping on good terms with die Master that trouble has remained at arm's length from us. Otherwise we would have been wiped out of existence long ago. Out of scores of people in the village can you name one who has not been ejected from his land or been served with attachment orders? When your neck is being trampled under the tyrant's heel the safest course is to keep on tickling his feet." But Dhania was not so well up in Worldly matters. She thought that at the most what the J^amindar could claim was the rent in exchange for tilling his land. Then why play the sycophant? Why should one touch the soles of a Zamindar's feet? To be sure, during the twenty years of her married life she had fully realised that even if she lived a niggardly life stinted on food and clothes, scraped together every elusive anna, it was difficult to liquidate the rent of the Zamindar. But even then she would not admit defeat. On this matter the husband and wife had differences every now and then. Of their six children only three had survived—one son, Gobar, who was now sixteen years old and two daughters, Sona, aged twelve and Rupa, eight. Three sons had died in infancy. She was convinced that with proper medical care their lives could have been saved. But she had not been able to buy even an anna worth of medicine for them. And what was her age? Ordinarily nobody would describe a woman of thirty-six as old. But her hair had already turned grey and her face was creased with wrinkles. Her youthful body had