Sinha asked agitatedly, ‘Who threatened you?’
‘Who all should we name, sarkar! All of them say the same,’ the palanquin bearer said.
‘Huzoor, I am being threatened that my entry into the temples will be banned,’ said the cook.
Mr Sinha commanded, ‘You cannot leave without a month’s notice.’
The horse-wrangler said, ‘Huzoor, we cannot survive if we are at loggerheads with our own community. We resign today. You can pay us whenever you think is appropriate.’
Mr Sinha first tried to handle them with anger, then resorted to coaxing them, but the servants stuck to their guns. Within half an hour, every one of them left. Mr Sinha sat there helplessly. But how difficult can things be for a haakim? He immediately sent word to the kotwaal that he was in need of servants and very soon several unemployed men were sent to his bungalow. Work resumed once again.
From that day tensions grew between Mr Sinha and the Hindu community. The dhobi refused to wash his clothes. The milkman tried to evade bringing milk. The hairdresser too refused his services to Mr Sinha. What made matters worse was his wife’s weeping and wailing. Every night she would have nightmares. She could not go from one room to another in the dark out of fear. If anybody in the house reported the slightest discomfiture or illness, she would begin to wallow in panic and anxiety. The biggest of her sorrows was that even relatives stopped visiting them. One day her brothers came, but left without even touching a glass of water. Another day, a brother-in-law visited, but he did not even take the paan that was offered to him. With great patience, Mr Sinha bore the contempt that came his way. He had lost nothing in terms of money. Men in need continued to turn up at his door, and gifts and money poured in like they always had. So there was hardly any great cause for worry.
But to have enmity with one’s own community is akin to living in a pond infested with crocodiles. It is merely a matter of time till some occasion or the other comes when one has to admit defeat to the society. Mr Sinha too was faced with such a situation within a year. The occasion was the wedding of his daughter. This is an occasion that forces even the most arrogant of men into meekness. You may not have a single care for the world—who comes and goes, what they eat, whether they do or do not meet you—but a daughter’s wedding is a problem that you simply can’t circumvent. Where will you go! Mr Sinha had anticipated that Triveni’s marriage would be jeopardized to some extent, but at the same time he was also convinced that he would tide over it on the strength of his money. He let some months pass thinking that maybe time would calm this storm, but when Triveni turned seventeen, Sinha realized that there was not much time to waste. He began sending out proposals. But wherever the messenger went, he was met with the same reply: ‘We can’t accept the proposal.’ The households that would have jumped for joy at being offered such a proposal only a year ago now replied dryly, ‘We can’t accept the proposal.’ Mr Sinha tried to lure families with money and land, by offers to send the boy abroad for studies, but all his plans and schemes were turned down. Observing the attitudes and responses of the high-class families, Mr Sinha turned to those families with whom he was previously averse to even sitting down for a meal. But he received the same response from this quarter too. Maybe someone from the families that had been excommunicated from the society would agree to take his daughter’s hand in marriage, but Mr Sinha could not bring himself to build relations with people who had no position in the society. In such a manner, a year passed.
Mrs Sinha was lying on the charpoy groaning, Triveni was cooking and Mr Sinha was sitting near his wife, worried. In his hand he held a letter, at which he was looking repeatedly. He was lost in thought. After a long time the ailing woman opened her eyes and proclaimed, ‘I won’t last now. Pande will not let me live. What is that in your hand?’
‘It’s a letter from Yashodanandan,’ he told her. ‘This man has neither shame nor gratitude, I helped him get a job, got him married. And today he has the audacity to refuse to marry his younger brother to my daughter. His fate would have turned around, the damned man!’
‘Bhagwan,’ she cried out, ‘call me to you! I cannot bear to see this any more. I want to have grapes. Did you send for them?’
‘I’ve fetched them myself.’
He placed the plate of grapes near her. She started to eat them one by one. When the grapes were over, she asked, ‘Who will you send the proposal to next?’
‘How do I answer you? I cannot think of any other person to ask. It’s a million times better to live outside the society instead of living in such a society. I took a bribe from a Brahmin; I don’t deny that. But who doesn’t? Nobody turns down an opportunity for gain. Forget Brahmin, bribe-takers will exploit God Himself, if needed. If the man who offered the bribe ends his life in disappointment, how is that a sin on my part! If somebody, unhappy with my decision, poisons himself, why am I to be held responsible for it? Yet I am prepared to atone for the damage that has been done, willing to accept the punishment that the fraternity deems fit for me. I have told everybody repeatedly that
