She would scold even the most respectable tenants. Not just the tenants—now she had begun to assert herself even over the clerk sahib.

Bhola no longer wished to remain dependent on her. In his eyes, there was no work more disgraceful than living off a woman’s earnings. He received only three rupees a month, and even that never reached his hands. Nohri would spend it all before he saw a paisa. He could not scrape together even a farthing for tobacco, while Nohri chewed betel worth two annas every day. Whoever saw him, would order him about. The bailiffs made him fill their hookahs, chop wood; the poor man, exhausted from a day’s labor, would come home and collapse on a string cot under the tree at the door. There was not a soul to offer him even a cup of water. He had to eat stale bread from the afternoon for dinner, and that too with only salt, or water and salt.

At last, defeated, he decided to return home and live with Kamta. Whatever may come, at least he would get a hard piece of bread, and it would be his own home.

Nohri said, “I will not go there to be anyone’s servant.”

Bhola steeled himself and replied, “I’m not telling you to go. I’m talking about myself.”

“You’ll leave me and go? Aren’t you ashamed to say that?”

“I’ve swallowed my shame.”

“But I haven’t given up my own shame. You cannot leave me.”

“You follow your own will—why should I be your slave?”

“I’ll call a panchayat and blacken your face, remember that.”

“Is there any less shame on me already? Do you still want to keep me deceived?”

“You’re putting on airs as if you buy me jewelry every day! Well, Nohri is not one to tolerate anyone’s airs.”

Bhola, exasperated, got up and took a stick from beside his pillow, but Nohri leapt and grabbed his wrist. It was impossible for Bhola to break free from her strong grip. He sat down quietly, like a prisoner. There was a time when he could make women dance to his tune, and now he was bound in the snare of a single woman, unable to escape. He did not wish to expose his weakness by struggling to free his hand. He had realized his own limits, but why could he not speak to her fearlessly and say, “You are not right for me, I renounce you.” She threatens him with the panchayat? What is the panchayat but a bogeyman? If she is not afraid of the panchayat, why should he be?

But he did not have the courage to give these feelings voice. It was as though Nohri had cast a spell over him.

: 26 :

Lala Pateshwari was the very embodiment of the virtues of the patwari community. He could not bear to see any tenant encroach even an inch upon another brother’s land. Nor could he tolerate a tenant withholding a mahajan’s