Free Greatest Short Stories by Mulk Raj Anand Page B

the engineer, took in everything at a glance and went towards the kitchen.
    ‘Why did you beat the girl? Shrimati Dayal asked Jaswant.
    ‘Time after time we have told her,’ said Jaswant, ‘That her husband has only one year more to do at college before he finishes his B.A. But she wishes to be with him or go to her father’s house.’
    ‘Mother, he is a liar!’ Lajwanti shrieked.
    ‘You must have oppressed her very much to make her say this of you!’ said engineering Dayal.
    ‘Sire, we have been good to her,’ pleaded Jaswant. ‘She comes from a poor home. My father is Chaudhuri Ganga Ram, Sarpanch of the whole village… I have a wife too, but she is a gentle woman from a big house…’
    ‘Like a cow,’ Lajwanti flared up. ‘And you want many more views.’
    ‘Don’t bark!’ — Shameless one! Or I will hit you!’ Jaswant said.
    At this Shrimati Dayal got up with a cool deliberation of her torso and delivered a clean slap on Jaswant’s face and said:
    ‘How do you like this? — If someone else hits you’!’. The man was taken completely unawares. He sat with his mouth open but speechless.
    ‘ That is what I should have done when he tried to approach me!’ said Lajwanti, her head turned demurely away from the engineer.
    ‘Clearly, this girl is not happy with your family.’ said the Engineer. ‘Let her go back to her father ’s house till her husband has finished his studies. And then she can come back to your family.’
    ‘That is right!’ added Shrimati Dayal. ‘I will not allow the child to be in your grip. You can have one wife and not two…’
    In the quivering scale pans of balance, created by the voices of injustice, Lajwanti felt the first moment of calm which had come to her during two long years. But immediately she felt the fear of Jaswant’s revenge for the slap he had received on the face. She looked at the Maina and said in speechless speech: ‘Angel, suppose there is a cool place, somewhere in the world where we two can rest..’
    ‘Ask her to decide,’ Jaswant said, ‘If she goes to her father’s house, she can never come back to us. If she comes back with me, we might consider sending her for a little while to her father’s house.’
    ‘Tell him what you feel, girl?’ said Shrimati Dayal.
    ‘I want to go to my father’s house, and never want to set foot on their threshold again,’ answered Lajwanti.
    ‘ There!’ said Shrimati Dayal. ‘ That is her answer for you… and if you are a decent man, go back to your home. 1 will see the girl to the bus which takes her to Pataudi…’ And, she turned to her husband for confirmation of her decision.
    ‘ That’s right!’ the Engineer said. ‘Gurkha!’ Shrimati Dayal called.
    ‘Coming, Bibiji, the servant answered. And he appeared with lime water for all and a little plain water and cummin seed for the Maina bird.

    Lajwanti arrived with the cage of the Maina bird in her hand, at her father’s house, when the old man was just going out to bathe his buffalo at the well. He stood open-eyed and open-mouthed, asking himself whether what he saw was his daughter or her ghost. When she bent down to take the dust off his feet, he could smell the acrid summer sweat of her clothes and knew that it was Lajwanti. He dared not look at her face, because a daughter coming back home without due ceremony, was inauspicious. Gentle as he was, however, he did not ask any questions. Only, he called to his young son, who was chopping up fodder for the buffalo.
    ‘Indu, your eldest sister has come. Wake up, your little sister, Moti…’
    Lajwanti was sad for her father. She knew that a man who had borne the grinding pressures of years of survival on one bigha and a buffalo, and whose wife had died leaving him with two small children, was in no condition to receive a grown-up married daughter, who had returned without even the proverbial bundle of clothes to change into.
    Indu left into the chopper and rushed towards her, clinging to