Read this Premchand short story 'Jhanki' in translation by me. This is among his less known stories and it is in fact in some ways uncharacteristic of Premchand art of story-telling. It is almost devoid of Premchand's genial humour and gentle irony, and hope. The atmosphere is sombre and joyless, positing a yawning gap between one's fantasies and reality. The ending leaves the readers to draw their own conclusions. The theme of the story, the strife between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in which the husband is caught, may seem old-fashioned in today's literature where, with the breakdown of the joint family and the emergence of the new self-conscious woman, the focus has perhaps shifted to conflict between husband and wife, yet Premchand weaves into the story a few things that remain relevant today. The atmosphere of pessimism surprises one. Had this something to do with the failure of his first marriage? But it depends on how one reads the story.
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A Reverie (Jhanki)
For many days the house
was torn apart by strife. Both my mother and my wife sat with their faces
turned away. The atmosphere within the house seemed poisoned. No food was cooked
yesterday evening. In the morning I made some khichdi but no one ate. Even the
children didn’t feel hungry. My little daughter shuttled back and forth among
us but no one had a word of affection for her. No one took her into their lap,
as if she too had committed a crime. When my son returned from school no one
offered him food, no one talked to him. Both the boy and the girl sat listless
in the verandah wondering why everyone had become so heartless. Brothers and
sisters often quarrel, shout at each other, come to blows but people don’t stop
cooking and become dumb because of that. They just didn’t know why this quarrel
showed no sign of ending even after twenty-four hours.
There was nothing much
at the root of the quarrel. The list prepared by amma of the gifts to be
sent to my sister’s house on Teej
seemed to my wife to be beyond our means. Amma was understanding enough and
had already trimmed it, but my wife thought that it needed to be trimmed
further. It could have been three saris instead of five. Where was the need for
so many toys and so many sweets? Her argument was that since their income was
declining and they had to cut down on their day-to-day expenses, there was no
sense in being liberal on Teej. No
one lights a lamp at the mosque while their own house is in darkness. That is
how the quarrel between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law began; and
then new branches sprouted up. Old complaints were raked up; then came innuendos,
then sarcasms, and finally it settled on dead silence.
I was in grave
distress. If I sided with amma my
wife raised a storm and began to curse her fate; if I sided with my wife I was
called henpecked. As a result I sided now with amma and now with my wife. But out of selfishness my sympathies
were with my wife. My cinema budget had gone awry. I was forced to reduce
expenses on my paan and I had stopped my trips to the market. I could not say
anything openly to amma but in my
heart I felt that she was more at fault. The shop wasn’t doing well at all. Customers were fewer. I
was unable to recover money from my debtors. So why should I court more
trouble by following these worn-out customs?
Caught up in these domestic tangles, I was feeling helpless. We were just three of
us and yet there was no love lost among us. Such a domestic life should be consigned to flames! At
times I thought of running away from all this. When they are forced to run the
household without me they would realize their folly. Had I known life would become
so distressful, I wouldn’t have ever married. My mind was filled with all kinds
of unpleasant thoughts. How am I to blame if the daughter-in-law doesn’t press
her mother-in-law’s feet or massage her head? I haven’t stopped her from doing
all this. I would be happy if there was real affection between the
daughter-in-law and the mother-in-law, but this was not within my power. If amma had washed her mother-in-law’s
saris, pressed her feet or faced her ire, why should she want to settle the
score on her daughter-in-law? Why doesn’t she see that the times have changed?
The daughters-in-law these days don’t like to be treated as slaves. You may pull them by their hair out of love, but you can’t rule over them by show of
authority. Those days are gone.
The whole city was
celebrating the festival of Janamashtmi, and
my house was in a state of war. It was evening and the whole house was in
darkness. Everything looked inauspicious. I lost my temper at my wife. Fight
if you like but why keep the house in darkness. I went to her and said, ‘Won’t
we light any lamps?’
My wife retorted, ‘Why
don’t you do it yourself. Don’t you have hands?’
I was inflamed, ‘Do you
think this house was in darkness before you stepped in here?’
Amma added fuel to the
fire, ‘No, we all lived in darkness before she came.’
My wife lost all
control over herself. ‘Yes, you must be burning earthen lamps. I have been here
for ten years now and haven’t seen a lantern.’
I shouted at her, ‘Now
shut up. Don’t go too far.’
‘O, you’re shouting at
me as if you have bought me in a sale.’
‘I say shut up.’
‘Why should I shut up?
You will get it back two fold.’
‘Is this what you call
wifely devotion?’
‘One gets a paan the
size of one’s mouth.’
Defeated, I came away
and sat down in the unlit room and began to curse the day I had married this
wretched woman. Even in this darkness my ten-year long married life flashed
before my eyes like a film in which there was no sign of brightness, no softness of affection.
2
All of a sudden my
friend Pandit Jaidevji called. ‘Oh, why this darkness? I can’t see anything.
Where’re you?’
I made no reply. Why
had he come to bother me?
‘Oh, bhai, where’re you?
Why don’t you answer? Is there anyone at home?’
He got no reply.
Jaidev shook the door
with such force that I thought the door and its frame would come apart. Even then I made no
reply.
Jaidev went away and I
breathed easy. Good riddance; or the devil would have bored me stiff for hours.
But just after five
minutes I heard the noise of footsteps, and soon my room was flooded with torch
light. When Jaidev saw me sitting inside he asked in surprise, ‘Where were you?
I shouted for hours and no one answered. What’s the matter? The whole house is
in darkness.’
I evaded. ‘I don’t
know. I had a headache and went to sleep as soon as I returned from the shop.’
‘And slept like a log,
betting with a corpse!’
‘Oh yes, dear, I was so
sleepy.’
‘But a lamp should have
been lit. Or have you retrenched?’
‘Today everyone is
fasting. They wouldn’t have found time.’
‘Forget it. Let’s go
somewhere to watch a tableau. The tableau in Seth Ghoorey Lal’s temple is a
special treat. Your eyes are dazzled looking at the workmanship of mirrors and
electric lights. Ashoka pillars bedecked with red, green and blue lights! And
right in front of the singhasana a fountain spraying rose water all around! My
dress was all drenched in fragrance. I have come straight to you. You might have
seen many sights, but this is something special. The place is bursting with people. They say it is the creation of
an expert workman specially brought from Delhi.’
I responded in an
indifferent tone, ‘Bhai, I don’t want to go. I have a severe headache.’
‘In that case you must
come. Your headache would vanish in no time.’
‘You’re too insistent.
That’s why I was lying quietly, wanting to avoid you. Why do you pester me? I
said I won’t go.’
‘And I say you have to
come.’
My friend has a very simple trick to secure
victory over me. I can match anyone in fist fighting, wrestling or anything but
if someone starts tickling me I surrender at once. I fold my hands. I giggle
and even begin to cry. Jaidev used this very trick and he won.He let me go only after I agreed to go with him to watch the tableau.
3
Seth Ghoorey Lal is a
person the very mention of whose name in the morning would deprive you of food
for the whole day. A hundred tales of his fly-sucking stinginess are part of
the city’s folklore. Once, it is said, a beggar came to his door and refused to
budge without receiving alms. The seth also refused to yield; whatever the
cost. The beggar, a Marwadi himself, kept on eulogizing the seth’s ancestors
for some time, then he started denigrating them and finally he lay down at the
seth’s doorsteps. The seth didn’t
care a bit and the beggar too refused to move. He kept lying there the whole day
without food and water and then he died there and then. The seth was so moved
that he cremated the beggar with great fanfare. He fed one lakh brahmins and
also gave one lakh rupees as donation. The beggar’s satyagraha became a
blessing for the seth. It was asif a spring of devotion burst forth in his
heart and he donated all his wealth for religious causes.
When we reached the temple
premises we found it very crowded. Shoulders clashed and bruised.
The entrance and exit were clearly marked out but even then we got our turn
only after half an hour. Jaidev went
overboard seeing the decorations but I felt that Krishna’s soul had vanished
somewhere in this beautification and display. I was overcome with dismay on
seeing his diamond-studded image shining in brilliant electric lights. Can love
reside in gems and diamonds? I wondered. We have seen only hypocrisy and arrogance
hidden in them. At that time I forgot that this temple belonged to
a millionaire; and a man of wealth can visualize God only as someone rolling in
wealth. Only a wealthy God can be the object of his devotion. One who does not
have wealth can be an object of his pity not devotion.
Everyone in the temple knows Jaidev. A troupe
of singers was sitting in the temple courtyard. Acharya Kelkarji was present
with his tanpoora and students of Gandharva Vidyalaya. Pakhawaj, sitar, veena
and many other musical instruments, unknown to me, lay beside his disciples.
They were getting ready for a recital. Kelkar called out Jaidev. I too went and
sat among the audience. The singing began and soon it cast a spell all around. The
noise that would have muffled even canon-fire was silenced as the flow of
sweetness mesmerized everyone present. Spellbound, everyone stayed where he was.
My own imagination had never been so vivid and picturesque. I saw neither the
dazzle of electric lights, nor the brilliance of diamonds, nor that display of
material wealth. I saw before me the bank of the Yamuna veiled behind thick
vines, the gentle cows, the same gopis frolicking in water, the same sweet note of
flute, the same moonlight, and the same
playful son of Nanda, whose face reflected the same love and childlike
innocence whose very sight cleansed all hearts.
4
I was lost in this
blissful state when the concert ended. Now one of Acharya Kelkar’s young
disciples began to intone the dhrupad.
The artistes often twist the shape of words in such a way that the listeners
are unable to follow them. I could make
no sense of the words of the raga but each note from the singer’s throat left
me breathless with its intoxicating sweetness. I had never realized before that a human voice could be so
melodious. My mind began to create a world where there was only bliss, only
love, only renunciation. It seemed that pain and suffering were only a state of the mind, and bliss was the only truth. Pure compassion began to berate my heart. A
feeling arose in my heart that all the people present here were my own,
inseparable from me. And then from the womb of my past the image of my brother surfaced in my mind.
Long ago my younger
brother had quarreled with me and run away to Rangoon carrying with him all the
valuables at home, and there his life had ended. I used to go mad recollecting
his beastly conduct. Had I met him when he was alive I would have sucked his blood.
But now my heart was gladdened to see him in my imagination and I longed to
embrace him. I forgot all the hateful cruelties he had inflicted on me, my
wife, on amma and my children. All I
remembered how unhappy he had been. I had never before felt such great affection for
my brother. And my heart was overwhelmed by tenderness. After that every feeling of animosity disappeared from my heart.
All the people with whom I had fought, exchanged abuses, or entered into
litigation seemed to be laughing, holding me in their embraces. Then my wife
Vidya’s image appeared before me – the same ten year-old image. I saw in her
eyes the same restlessness, the same trust, and on her cheeks the bashful
redness as if she was a lotus risen from the pool of love. The same love, the same
passion, the same eagerness and desire that I had seen on the unforgettable
first night on which I had welcomed her. It was as if a reservoir of sweet
memories had opened up before me. I felt like going to Vidya this very moment
and fall on her feet, and crying go into a swoon. My eyes were filled with
tears and all the bitter words I had uttered seemed to be digging into my own
heart. In this state, amma took me in
her loving lap. The motherly affection that I was unable to experience during
my childhood, I experienced now.
The singing ended. People
started moving out. I kept sitting there lost in my reverie.
All of a sudden Jaidev
asked me to move.
(Hindi, Jagran,
August 1932)
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