How Phulwa, once a downtrodden woman, made the zamindar’s son green with envy

Phulwa’s joy knew no bounds. The zamindar’s son was visiting her home! Her mind went back to the day that had been a day of unimaginable misfortune. Phulwa’s husband had been trying to restrain and tame an aggressive bullock that belonged to the zamindar. The rope had slipped from his hands momentarily and the bullock, sensing the slack, had gored him in the stomach with its horns. Phulwa’s husband had writhed in agony, flailing around, bleeding to death. Phulwa had become a widow. Their son Radhamohan had been about ten years old then. Phulwa had inherited her husband’s legacy of serfdom and debt, just as moneylenders inherit the business from their forefathers and landowners inherit land. There were two mouths to feed now. She began cutting the grass, filling water and feeding the cattle at the zamindar’s house.

A cane table and some chairs stood on the veranda outside. Phulwa sat down on a cane chair and pointed to another. “Do please sit, Rameshwar Ji,” she said.

Rameshwar sat down. Two long-haired dogs came out and sniffed around him, yipping and growling at his feet. A bundle of nerves, Rameshwar curled in his toes.

Phulwa shouted at the dogs: “Pumpi, Meenu, go inside! This is Rameshwar Ji. He is the landowner from our village! He is our guest!’

Both the dogs immediately retreated, retiring inside like two well-mannered children.

Rameshwar’s suspicions were confirmed: Phulwa is not a tenant of the house; she is the owner! Pride in his superior caste overwhelmed him and he began to burn with envy. Phulwa glanced at Rameshwar and got up. She pushed open the netted door of a room and led him inside. The house was huge, a veritable mansion, with nearly a dozen well-kept rooms. The walls had been distempered. The floors were of marble. Rameshwar was bedazzled. Despite all her scrubbing, his wife couldn’t make his bronze vessels shine like this.

Phulwa’s family consisted of five members: Phulwa, her son, her daughter-in-law, a grandson and a granddaughter.

Phulwa’s wings were spread wide with happiness. She was virtually soaring in the air. She was going to show Rameshwar each and every thing in the house. Such things as would not be there, perhaps, even in the homes of landowners and moneylenders.

She took him into the lounge. An ostentatious dining table set stood imposingly in the middle of a large room. Rameshwar leaned over to admire the white sunmica-topped table. Another Rameshwar inside the table shone out at him, as in a reflecting mirror.

Phulwa’s gold-framed glasses were loose for her. They kept slipping off her nose. She set them right and said, “Rameshwar Ji, we all eat our meals here. Guests also eat here. Today you too will be dining with us.’

It was as if someone had jabbed him with a needle. At home, they simply spread a chatai on the floor for guests.

Phulwa’s excitement was rising like water at high tide. She opened the fridge with a flourish. It was stocked to bursting point with cold-water bottles, cold drinks, mangoes, apples and oranges. The squares of the ice trays were frozen with ice cubes.

Phulwa took out an ice tray and said, “These cubes are filled with water. It turns into ice. Sometimes, we freeze kulfi in this tray too.” A food processor lay on top of a sideboard. As Rameshwar’s curious eyes fell on it, Phulwa explained: “This is a mixie, Rameshwar Ji. We use it to extract the juice of mangoes, oranges, grapes, carrots and tomatoes. Even churma becomes as finely powdered as surma in this.’

She then led him into the kitchen. The marble-tiled kitchen was replete with expensive pots and pans. Rameshwar’s eyes glazed over in awe. There was cooking gas! Phulwa lit the stove with a practised flick of the lighter. Rameshwar’s mouth was agape, like the opening of a weaver bird’s nest. Back home, his wife’s eyes would sting with tears every time she tried to light the earthen hearth. Phulwa’s “hearth” lit in the blink of an eye. Phulwa switched off the gas. There was a water tap. She turned on the tap and water gushed forth. “We have round-the-clock water supply in our house,” Phulwa informed him.

Rameshwar’s mind went back to another incident that had occurred some sixteen years ago. The community that Phulwa belonged to was forbidden to use the landowners” well. She had to fetch water from a well half a mile away from where she lived.

That particular day, Rameshwar had been bathing at the nearby well. Phulwa, who was in a tearing hurry, had come with her pitcher and called to him from the periphery of the well. She had pressed her palms together in a gesture of entreaty and begged again and again, “I have to go to the village today. Please, Rameshwar Ji! Just pour two buckets of water into my pitcher.’

He had been beside himself with anger, outraged at her audacious use of his name. Imagine her, of all people, addressing him as “Rameshwar’! He’d leaned forward and spat into her pitcher. Phulwa had flung the earthen pitcher right there and run home in tears.

The corners of Phulwa’s eyes filled with tears as she, too, vividly remembered the incident. It was as if two hands had simultaneously gone into Time’s earthen pot. But time is a wizard. Rameshwar was still drawing water from the same well, while Phulwa’s kitchen had a water tap in it!

Rameshwar followed Phulwa to a room where her granddaughter was studying. The girl sported a short hairstyle. Staring at the pretty skirt-and-blouse-clad sixteen-year-old, Rameshwar was at a loss for words. There was no one comparable to her in his village. The girl seemed to be picking up height – she is so beautiful! The girl looked up, went through the formality of greeting Rameshwar and then returned to her books. He was angered that she had not even risen to her feet in a show of respect when she saw him. In the next room, Phulwa’s grandson was busy studying too. When he saw a stranger with his granny, he greeted him perfunctorily and then turned his back on them.

Phulwa finally took Rameshwar to her own room. It was a spacious room with two beds, two fans and an air cooler. She switched on the cooler and then abruptly turned it off. “I seldom use it,” she explained. “It makes me feel sweaty.’

Rameshwar was boiling with rage. He wanted to scratch her eyes out. How she was showing off – this two-bit woman! In the village, she had slept out among the shrubs in an open field; and today, it seemed that the cooler made her feel sweaty! He almost jumped when Phulwa touched his arm lightly. She led him into the guest room.

The grandeur of the room set every pore of his skin on fire. What a room it was – practically a hall! There were two beautifully inviting beds, so grand that a mere touch could soil them. A colour TV sat in one corner. In the other stood a study table and a couple of chairs. There was an attached bathroom too. “You will sleep here tonight. This is a colour TV, Rameshwar Ji. Use it if you like,” Phulwa said magnanimously.

Phulwa’s mansion had many expensive and unique things. She decided she would not show them all to him today. She would make him stay a day or two. She would take him around the city in the car. Now she was approaching the stairs. She said,

‘Come Rameshwar Ji, I’ll show you the terrace.’

She climbed the stairs, taking one step after another, almost forgetting that she was old and that her calves ached if she walked too much. The four-hundred-square-yard house had a terrace that was just as vast. Rameshwar blinked. It was not a terrace – it was a maidan. It was as big as the courtyard of his own house. He smacked his forehead as he remembered something from the past. It was all a game of fate, he told himself. Once, during the monsoon, a gusty wind had blown off Phulwa’s thatched roof. He had sanctioned her only fifty bundles of thatch to fix it.

Phulwa now came to the drawing room. She did not know the name for it, so she called it the baithak, as they did back in the village. In the village, the baithak was used only for visitors. This drawing room had a sofa set and a granite-topped centre table. A phone was sitting on a stool. The walls were adorned with wooden artefacts and paintings. Three glittering glass-fronted cabinets were filled with eye-catching figurines. A velvety carpet was spread on the floor.

Phulwa said, “This is my baithak. Sit, Rameshwar Ji.” She pointed to the sofa.

When Rameshwar sat down, he sank six inches into the sofa’s softness. Observing him now, Phulwa was reminded of her past. The old Phulwa had been scorched by misfortune. Today, she was plush with creature comforts.

Her kuchcha cottage, standing on a barren stretch of land, had lacked any cover; it had been open to the elements. The hot sun glared down into her home the whole day. The rains drenched everything both outside and inside and her hands would grow bone-weary baling out the water. When winter came, the freezing cold would settle deep into her home. Phulwa pushed her spectacles back and looked around the baithak. Her self-gratification was reflected in her eyes. She rubbed her eyes with her fingers as she asked, “How many children do you have, Rameshwar Ji?’

‘Three daughters and two sons. Now the older son has a son too, Phulwa,” said Rameshwar.

Phulwa decided she would put some toys in Rameshwar’s bag before he left for the village in a day or two. They had toys that moved when you wound them; they made all sorts of sounds too, when the batteries were put in. She imagined the sensation they would create back in the village. Everyone would come running to see them. “Phulwa has sent them! Such amazing running, moving, talking toys!” they would marvel. She remembered they had an old pram lying somewhere in the junk. She would give it to Rameshwar. His grandson could use it.

Seated on the sofa, Rameshwar kept fidgeting restlessly, as if something were burning under him. Gesturing towards his dry mouth, he pulled out a bidi packet and a matchbox from his pocket. He lit a bidi and tossed the matchstick carelessly on to the carpet. Then he finished smoking the bidi and stubbed it out on the carpet with his foot. He knew the stub had to be put in the ashtray lying on the table, but envy had got the better of him.

‘Rameshwar Ji, that bidi was lit,” Phulwa told him. “It could have damaged the carpet, you know.’

Rameshwar wobbled his head, contradicting her. “No, Phulwa Bhabi, I crushed it with my shoe,” he said.

‘It isn’t a nice thing to do,” she admonished him, picking up the stub and putting it in the ashtray.

‘Kunwar!” she called out.

At once, a dark-skinned, shapely woman of about twenty-five came and stood by her. Her face was lightly pitted with smallpox scars; yet it was as clean as running water. She wore a red saree with green polka dots and she drew the pallu over her forehead when she saw Rameshwar.

‘Kunwar, bring two coffees for us. Also, barfi, savouries and gum sweetmeats,” Phulwa told her.

Kunwar went back inside. Rameshwar took off his safa and started scratching his scalp. Dandruff began to fly and scatter, as his head had not been washed in days. He put the safa back on his head. He was becoming grimmer by the minute – all the way to the soles of his feet. Phulwa had proved to be clever. She had suffered untold hardship; yet she had made sure that her son Radhamohan completed his education; because if she had not, his hands would still have been wielding the plough.

Phulwa picked up the phone and dialled a number. “Hello?” she said. “Who am I speaking to? Radhamohan beta?’

‘Yes, mother.’

Getting an affirmative response, she said, “Son, come home early today, will you? Rameshwar Ji is here.” She replaced the receiver.

Rameshwar’s eyebrows shot up. So Phulwa has become smart enough to use the phone!

Kunwar had already brought in two glasses of water on a tray. Now she returned with coffee, sweets, savouries and gum sweetmeats. She stood there and waited for further orders from Phulwa, before withdrawing from the room.

Rameshwar turned to Phulwa. “So she is your daughter-in- law, is she?’

‘No, she is not. She is our maid. Her name is Kunwar. We have never ever enquired about the poor woman’s caste. She says she is a Rajput. Our village has thirty-six variations of caste. In the city, however, there are only two castes – the rich and the poor. One day, I found her at our gate, weeping. When I approached her, she fell at my feet. “Amma Ji,” she sobbed, “I am an unfortunate wretch. I don’t want to beg for a living. Please employ me as a maidservant.”’

Phulwa removed her glasses as she continued: “Rameshwar Ji, I was moved to tears. And I kept her on. She has a five-year- old son too. He is not well today. Must be sleeping somewhere inside.’

Phulwa cleared her throat as she said, “Men can be so heartless, Rameshwar Ji. Kunwar is illiterate. When her educated husband became an officer, he abandoned her. He married an educated girl. Poor Kunwar! She neither understands courts nor officialdom.” Phulwa sighed. “There’s no denying a woman her undying hope, though… Kunwar never fails to fill the parting in her hair with vermilion like a wife would – and weeps every day. In fact, I look upon her now as my own daughter.’

Rameshwar felt himself sinking deeper into a mire of shame and outrage; a woman from such a high caste working as a servant for a low-caste nonentity like Phulwa! Imagine serving in Phulwa’s house – Phulwa, who had once led such a wretched life herself!

Excerpted with permission from Thunderstorm: Dalit Stories, Ratan Kumar Sambharia, translated by Mridul Bhasin, Hachette India.