Mahasweta Devi’s thriller exposes the moral hypocrisy of the affluent when a pregnant maid dies

Today, something went terribly wrong at home.

Ten years have passed since he got married. In all that time, Kumkum has not had a child. It’s not as if she and A-babu had been unwilling. Yet she had not conceived. Did that make her unhappy?

It was hard to tell.

Yet, every so often she would say, What’s the use of all this money? Who will we leave it to, what will we do with it? Who are we collecting all this for?

Arjun would say, Be patient. Keshtokali has said you are sure to bear a child.

Keshtokali is a kabiraj, a renowned Ayurvedic practitioner. With a very successful practice. No one other than the two of them knows the history of his friendship with Arjun-babu. Once upon a time, Arjun-babu’s uncle used to supply leaves and roots to Keshtokali Kabiraj’s father.

That poor and timid man one day begged Shastri-moshai: Babu, so many have food to eat because of you. Can you give some shelter to my nephew? He’s very good at his studies. But no mother or father. How much more can I do for him?

The elderly kabiraj was an old-fashioned man. The ground floor of his home already housed a few such needy young men who were pursuing their studies.

– All right, bring him along.

That is how Sanatan came into his home. How Sanatan became Arjun. And how, erasing the past, Arjun slowly rode the lift of high aspirations all the way up to the twelfth floor of society...all that is but ancient history now.

The old kabiraj did not live to see Arjun’s success. Keshtokali is the sole surviving link to his past.

Kumkum, though, doesn’t have much faith in Ayurveda. She has never been able to truly accept it

Yet, that incredible incident did take place. And today Kumkum is eight months pregnant. Currently staying at her father’s. She needs plenty of looking after at a time like this.

And Arjun is hardly ever at home.

Kumkum will be safe in her mother’s care. Arjun-babu is not worried, not worried at all.

Nor is he worried about whether it’ll be a boy or a girl. If it’s a boy, nothing like it. The empire he’s built up brick by brick – he’ll leave it all to him.

And if it’s a girl?

She’ll get it all too. And because she’ll get it all, she won’t die a mysterious death at her in-laws’. He’ll prepare her well.

This is what he thinks about these days. What he was thinking about today as well. Who could have thought that the maid Jamuna would come in just then, give him such terrible news?

Jamuna lived in a slum in this controversial neighbourhood. There are many reasons why this area bordering the docks is so controversial. Rumour has it that here, even the common man is involved in some form of anti-social activity. But can the residents of multi-storey apartment blocks like Barnamala afford to worry about such things? They need servants, after all.

Shiny modern flats filled with the latest gadgets and appliances. The pictures one sees of high-society homes on television, in advertisements, in the movies, are just like the kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms in these flats.

The mistresses of such homes don’t do any household chores. This society, in its attempt to be like the West, has aped its outward appearance to perfection.

But not its inner attitudes.

In the West, most people don’t have domestic help. Husbands and wives share the chores – but the upper echelons of this country don’t accept this.

In their hearts, each one is landed gentry.

They want a maid, they want a houseboy, they want a cook, they want it a–l–l. Not a single one wants to help with the housework.

Hence, the nearby slums to the rescue.

What are the residents of all these multi-storeys to do, after all? They know these people are suspect, yet they employ them.

But they’re nervous. So they need a security service. Twenty-four-hour guards.

Barnamala too has such an arrangement.

Which is why Arjun-babu is not worried, not worried at all. His house is filled with locker after locker. Expensive brands of lockers. Before the cash is deposited into anonymous accounts, it is stored at home. Nothing to worry about.

There is a security service, after all.

But what is all this that Jamuna is saying?

– Babu!

– What is it, Jamuna?

– Have to talk.

– To me?

In her nylon sari and backless blouse (given by Kumkum), a furious Jamuna glares at him with furious eyes.

– If not you, then who?

– You’re talking to me like this?!

– I’ll talk to you as I like, what can you do about it? You bastard, you damn devil!

– Chhi chhi! Shame on you, Jamuna!

– Boudi goes away and you start fooling around with me! Didn’t think about all this, then?

– Hush, Jamuna, not so loud!

– You know what’s happened to me?

– What’s happened?

Jamuna places her hands on her belly in a telling gesture and looks at him.

– You’re. . .you’re. . .

– Yes, yours.

– How long?

– Since Boudi left. Barely seven months when you got rid of her. Now you sit and count.

Arjun-babu feels faint.

– Jamuna! What are you saying?!

– Don’t you know what I’m saying? My husband hasn’t come to me for so long. You forced yourself on me....no one else has the guts to lay a finger on me. Now you better sort it out.

– Me? I have to....

– Then who?

– Why should I?

– Think you’ll get out of it? You don’t know Jamuna.

Where I live, there’re plenty of gangs. If I spill the beans – do you know what’ll happen to you? When an old cock sprouts new feathers, this is his fate. Got your wife with child in your ripe old age, but you can’t rest till you’ve spoilt the maids! Arjun was astonished by her reference to the “old cock”.

Had Jamuna read the Michael Madhusudhan play?

– So what you thinking, babu?

– Look Jamuna, what’s done is done. . .

– You have to pay me.

– Jamuna, have you read Michael?

– You making fun of me?

– Pay you? Why? I’ll take you, I mean, you’ll go, I’ll arrange everything.

– No, babu. Jamuna’s not such a fool.

– What do you mean?

– You’ll say hospital but you’ll take me somewhere else, kill me, I know everything. I know you babus very well.

Excerpted with permission from Truth/Untruth, Mahasweta Devi, translated from the Bengali by Anjum Katyal, Seagull Books.