First chapter
Harihar Roy's small hut at the very northern edge of Nischindipur village. Harihar is a householder of ordinary condition, runs the family simply from the income of a small landed property of his father's period and the settlement of two or four houses of his followers annuities.
The previous day was Ekadashi (a Hindu festival) . Harihar's distant aunt Indir Thakrun sits on the porch of the house in the morning eating a snack of rice powder. Harihar's six-year-old daughter sits quietly by the side and watches the movement of each handful of fried dough from the moment it is lifted from the pot to the time it is filled in her mouth with great pity, and sometimes looks despondently at the disorganized brass bowl. Even after trying to say something twice, he could not say it. Indir Thakrun picked up handful after handful and exhausted the pot and looked at Khuki and said, Oh mother, didn't I leave two for you? — Look at that!
The girl said with pitiful eyes, so be it father, you eat —
Indir Thakur broke two large ripe beech-bananas and handed them to him. Now Khuki's eyes and face were bright - he took the gift from Pisima's (niece) hand and began to suck slowly with attention.
He called his mother from the house, went there again and sit like that? Come up here!
Indir Thakrun said, don't worry — she is sitting near me, she does not want to do anything. sit down
However, his mother said in a stern tone, no. Why would you sit like that at meal time? I don't like that; Come on baby get up—
Khuki got up in fear.
Harihar's relationship with Indir Thakur is very distant. What kind of sister about uncle's house. Harihar Ray's ancestral home was in the neighboring village of Yashra-Bishnupur. Harihar's father Ramchand Roy Mahashay, after his first marriage at a young age, noticed with great indignation that Pitradeva had no intention of marrying him a second time. After spending a year in some kind of eye-popping, when his father showed no enthusiasm in that direction, Ramchand became desperate and was forced to use various weapons directly and indirectly. At noon there is nothing, the simple man Ramchand is tossing about in bed after eating - if someone sits near and wants to know what happened, Ramchand would pick up the tune, who else is with him, who will see him again - if he holds his head now or what - etc. As a result, Ramchand's second wife got married in this village of Nischindipur, and after his father's death shortly after the marriage, Ramchand took the bus from Yashra-Bishnupur and started living here permanently. It is about his young age - after coming to this village, Ramchand started studying Sanskrit under the care of his father-in-law, and in time became a good scholar in the area. However, there is reason to doubt whether he was fit to do any work he never did. For nine months of the year, his wife and son stayed at his in-laws' house. He himself used to spend most of his time in the neighborhood Patiram Mukhujya's party and would only appear at his father-in-law's house during the two o'clock meal; If someone asked - Panditmashay, the boy is there, the end should be seen? Ramchand used to say - No idea, even if Brajo Chakkotti's paddy fields were picked up and played, now their two men will laugh and play. Later, he used to think of how he would be able to break the house if he combined the pair of sixes and panjuri.
It was not long after his father-in-law's death that Ramchand realized how far-fetched his confidence in the permanence of Braj Chakravarti's rice harvest had been. He had no land in this village and no cash. Two or four disciple-servants were gathered here and there, and by them they managed the family in some way and raised the son. Before him, one of his cousins got married at his in-laws house. They also lived here. They also helped Ramchand a lot. Neelmani Ray, the son of a relative, used to work in the Commissariat, but as he had to stay abroad for work, he finally took the bus here and took his old mother to work. Now there is no one else in their house.
It is heard that Indir Thakur was married to a nobleman from the east. The husband used to enter this village after marriage. After spending one-and-a-half nights, after collecting the travel expenses and honors, he would mark the book and leave for the next number's in-laws' house with the talpi-carrier, so Indir Thakur could not think well of his husband. After the death of his parents, he used to come to his brother's shelter with two handfuls of food, unfortunately that brother also died at a young age. Harihar's father Ramchand soon after took up residence in this house and from that time Indir Thakur's first entry into this world. It is not about all Azika.
It has been a long time since then; How many generations of water lilies have come and gone in Shankharipukur. Sitanath Mukhujya planted a new pen garden in the empty field of the Chakravartis and all those trees started growing again. How many houses did the new household live in? How many people have become desolate, how many Golok Chakravarti, Braj Chakravarti have died, Ichhamati's sparkling clear water flowed with the endless flow of time, like a chute, like the foam of a wave, how many Mr. Johnson Thomson of the village Nilkuthi, how many laborers have been washed away!
Only Indir Thakur is still alive. She is not the smiley young woman of 1240, she is seventy-five years old, her cheeks are wrinkled, her body is bent forward, distant things are not visible as before, she raises her hands and covers her eyes as if to protect them from the sun and says, who is coming? freshman? Behari? No, oh, you are Raju. . . .
What little change in this life happened on the eyes of Indir Thakur! The house of Braj Chakraborty, which has become a forest these days, on the day of Kojagri Lakshmi-Purnima, the people of the village lay leaves there. Big Chandi Mandape is sitting in the morning and afternoon! What was that kind of bamboo! On the day of Paush-Parban, one kind of rice was cut in that bowl for Paush-Pitha - Indir Thakur can still see it when he closes his eyes! The mistress of that house has come to reap the rice with the people, the water is pouring down the banks, the gold bowtie is moving forward and back again, like Jagaddhatri, the same character. When Indir Thakur became a widow, every fortnight in the morning he used to bring snacks and feed her. Who went where! There is no one else alive from that time with whom he shared two happy and sad stories.
Then Ramchand, the protector of that world, died, and his son Harihar was born that day. He used to jump and play on the path of the ghat, he went to eat tamarind from the tamarind tree of Mukhujyed and fell and broke his hand and was bedridden for two or three months; About that day. He got married at a young age after his father's death. For eight or ten years there was almost no inquiry—Kalebhadra used to send one or two letters, sometimes two or five taka was sent by money order in the name of the old woman. How hard it was to open this house, how long he had not eaten, he was looking at the neighbor's door and worried.
After a long time, Harihar has come for six or seven years and has got a family, he has a daughter - she was also about six years old. The old woman thought that the home and family of her childhood had been restored by now. In his narrow life, he does not want any other happiness, he is unable to think of other types of happiness and sorrow - he is happy only if the turning point is turned in the old way of life accustomed to happiness, that is the story of ultimate happiness for him.
Harihara's little girl he could not hide from his eyes — he had a daughter of his own, her name was Visveswari. Marries young and dies soon after marriage. Among the daughters of Harihara, Visveswari returns to her orphan mother's arms after forty years from the land of death. Forty years of nivea-gone motherhood are awakened by the dangerous expression of the girl's face, the smile of the senseless eyes—the momentary glimmering of interest, the desperate hunger of the dying life.
But what he thought did not happen. What if Harihar's wife is a little beautiful to look at, heavy quarrelsome, two eyes can't see her. Who doesn't have an address, can't find a relationship with him, sitting and destroying food!
He took the details and prevented a quarrel with the old woman twice. After a lot of quarreling, the old woman hung a brass kettle on her arm and a cloth pattu in her right hand and said - I am the new wife, and if I ever trample the soil of the house, then mine. After going out of the house, the old woman used to spend the whole day sitting in the bamboo garden in sorrow. Finding her in the evening, Harihar's little daughter would go to him, hold her by the neck and start pulling her - Oth Pitima, I will tell my mother that I will not talk to you, Oth Pitima. Holding his hand, the old woman returned home in the dark of the evening. Sarvajaya turned his face and said, he came! Where else will you go? There is no hair to go but this? . . . Tejtuku(arrogant) is here sixteen Anna(coins)!
This has started within a year or so of their coming home—has happened many times and sometimes often.
In Harihar's eastern residence, the thatched house has been in a state of disrepair for a long time. An old woman lives in this house. Put two pieces of dirt on a bamboo rack and tie the two ends of the torn area together. Nowadays, old women cannot sew clothes because they can't use thread. A torn mat and some tattered rugs on one side. The tattered cloth of the state is tied in a ribbon. It seems that they have been carefully stored as materials for weaving kantha for a long time, they have never been needed, but even if they are needed now, they do not have the brilliance of eyes to weave kantha. Yet they are grown with utmost care, when the sun shines after the rainy season in Bhadra month, the old woman opens them and sometimes exposes them to the sun in the yard. A pair of tattered red sarees tied in a cane knot—they belonged to his daughter Visveswari; A brass sheet pot, an earthen pot, two earthen vessels. A brass pot is filled with rice, powdered with hamandista at night and eaten occasionally. Some of the earthen pots have a little oil, some salt, some date molasses. When asked by Sarvajaya, the old woman hides them from the family and keeps them stored in the cane basket of the marriage.
Sarvajaya rarely comes to this house. But in the evening, his daughter sat on the torn-sheet bed in the house and listened to Pisima's fairy tale for a long time. After listening to this story for a while, Khuki said, - Father, tell the story of that robber! A house in the village was robbed fifty years ago, that is the story. Although it has been said many times before, it has to be repeated after a few days, Khuki does not leave. After that he listens to the rhyme in the mouth of Pisima. Many rhymes of those days were memorized by Indir Thakur. How much praise Indira Thakur earned in those days by reciting rhymes to her friends of the same age on the path at a young age. He did not get such a patient audience for a long time after that; Lest it get rusty, all the rhymes he knows are now memorized by reciting them to his little niece once every evening. Tania Tania recites —
He heard a word in the lollipop,
A thief has entered Radha's house—saying thus far, she looks expectantly at her niece with a smile on her face. Khuki says enthusiastically—Churobandha Ek-minse.—with unnecessary emphasis on the letter 'M' and ends the verse with his little head bent forward in rhythm. Khuki takes great pleasure.
In an attempt to fool his (PC) niece, he recites rhymes and leaves to fill the post, which may not have been said for ten or fifteen days—but Khuki remembers rightly, he is hard to fool.
At night, when his mother called him to eat, he got up.
[note:In Bangladesh we called girl child (khuki) and male child (khuka).
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