Mahashweta Read Online Free Page B

his wife. They had two children, Anand and Girija.
    Anand was born five years into her marriage—the result of many pilgrimages and prayers for a male child. He was the apple of her eye, a fountain of joy in her barren life. She would smile when he smiled; and when he wept, gloom would descend on her. Even though they had several servants at home, it was she who fed and looked after him. Anand grew up in a sheltered environment. He was good at studies and extremely obedient to his mother. He always felt she was the person responsible for all his progress. Anand inherited his mother’s looks and his father’s intelligence.
    His sister Girija was born five years after him. She had been brought up like a princess. Good-looking and extremely arrogant, Girija behaved harshly with everybody, and nobody had the courage to remonstrate with her. Radhakka would always find excuses for her conduct, ‘Oh, she is only a child, after all,’ she would say. Girija was not good at studies, but no one bothered about it.
    Their house was named Lakshmi Nivas. It was aptly named in every way—it was a big mansion in a large plot of land. Every Deepavali, Radhakka would organize a big puja for the goddess Lakshmi, and the entire town would be invited for the celebration.
    Radhakka was extremely orthodox and narrow-minded. When her husband died, the thought that she was a widow made her feel very uncomfortable although she had no financial worries. With the death of her husband, she felt she could no longer celebrate the puja of the goddess, given the attitudes and conventions prevailing in the small town where she lived. She believed that only Anand’s wife could now perform the Lakshmi puja, and she was waiting for him to get married. Although he had won a scholarship to go to England for higher studies, Radhakka would not let him go until after his marriage.

    The village schoolmaster, Shama Rao,—Shamanna, as he was called—was teaching mathematics in the verandah of his home to a group of students who were all from well-off families. In keeping with the usual custom in the village, no money was paid to the teacher, but the children brought him coconuts, vegetables or other produce from their fields.
    Shamanna’s mind was not on what he was teaching. He was impatiently waiting to hear the sound of the village postman’s cycle bell. Since the small village was located some distance from the district headquarters, the postman came once a week. He not only delivered the letters, but, if necessary, also read them out and wrote the replies as dictated to him. He would stay at the village master’s house and leave the following morning for the next village.
    Vasudha, Shamanna and Sabakka’s daughter, was helping her mother in the kitchen. Though Sabakka was busy chopping vegetables, she came out every five minutes to see if the postman had come.
    The postman, Papanna, brought a pile of letters when he arrived. There were two letters for Shamanna. He opened one and began reading. The children noticed that he was occupied and started whispering among themselves, the whispers quickly turning into a quarrel. The noise distracted Shamanna. He was already upset by the contents of the letter, and this unruly behaviour angered him further.
    ‘Children, go home now. For your homework, write out the multiplication tables from twenty-one to thirty, three times each, and show it to me tomorrow.’
    The children behaved as if the doors of a cage had been opened, and they disappeared within moments.
    The letter Shamanna was reading was from the father of a boy who had come with a marriage proposal. Anupama, though the eldest, had told her father very clearly that she did not want to marry just yet as she wished to pursue her studies, or start working. She had also requested her father to go ahead with Nanda’s marriage. As Nanda was not interested in studying and was ready to get married, he had tried to arrange her marriage, and she had been