The Shroud
Kafan
By Premchand
The father and the son were sitting right in front of the entrance of the shack, beside a fire that had long gone out. Inside, Budhia, the son’s young wife, was writhing in labour pains. Her heart-rending cries made the father and the son hold their hearts. It was a desolate wintry night and the whole village was enveloped in darkness.
“She won’t last, it seems,” said Ghisu. She has been tossing and turning the whole day. Go in and see what’s wrong.”
“Why doesn’t she just die, if she has to? What’s there to see?” Madho whined piteously.
“You are so cruel. You spent a whole year with her happily, and now you’re turning your face away from her.”
“I can’t bear to see her writhing in pain, flailing her hands and legs.” Ghisu and Madho were chamars by caste, and were treated with contempt by the whole village. For every   shirker was Ghisu worked, he shirked duty for three. But the real day that Madho who sat and puffed at the chillum for an hour after each hour of work that he put in.  That is why no one hired them. They wouldn’t seek work if they had even a fistful of grain at home. Only when  they missed a couple of meals did Ghisu climb up a tree to gather some dry branches which Madho carried to the market to sell. As long as that money lasted they simply roamed about. Faced with starvation again, they would gather dry wood or seek some other work.
There was no dearth of work in the village. The peasants who live there could have given them all kinds of jobs, but they called the duo only when they were desperate and had no option but to employ both to get the work done which could otherwise have been accomplished by one. Had the father-son duo been sadhus, they wouldn’t have been required to practice self-restraint for attaining contentment. It was second nature to them.
A strange life they led! They had nothing in the house except for a couple of clay utensils. They covered their nakedness in tattered rags. Even though they were free from the temptations of life they were burdened with debt. They listened to people’s insults and abuses with perfect equanimity. They were so destitute that people lent them things without any hope of getting the same back. They would enter other people’s fields, steal potatoes and peas and roast them to fill their stomachs. Or they would uproot a few sugarcane stalks and suck the juice through the night. Ghisu had been living this Spartan life for sixty years, and now Madho, like a truly obedient son, was following in his father’s footsteps. Rather, he outdid his father in this. At that hour also, sitting by the fire, they were roasting potatoes that they had stolen from somebody’s field.
Ghisu’s wife had died a long time ago. Madho had married only the previous year. This woman had brought some order in the family. She ground wheat or chopped grass and somehow managed to get a seer of flour to feed these two shameless people. Since she had come they had become lazier and more laidback than before. They had even started giving themselves airs. If someone wanted to hire them, they wouldn’t show any interest, and then demand double the wages. This woman was tossing and turning in mortal labour pain since morning, but the father and the son seemed to be waiting for her to die so that they  could have a good night’s sleep.

As he peeled the potatoes Ghisu said, “Just go in and see what’s wrong. She must be possessed by an evil spirit. The exorcist will demand no less than a rupee if you send for him. Where will we get the money?”
Worried that if he went in Ghisu might polish off most of the potatoes, Madho replied, “I’m afraid to go in.”
“Afraid of what? I’m right here.”
Why don’t you go in and see?”
“When my wife died, I didn’t budge from her side for three days…. She’ll feel shy, won’t she ? I have never looked at her face, She wouldn’t know how to react. If she sees me she’ll go stiff with embarrassment.” 
“I wonder what we will do if the child comes. Dry ginger, jaggery, oil—we have nothing in the house.”
“Everything will come. If God give a child, those who don’t give a paisa now will give something on their own. I had nine sons. There was never anything in the house, but things worked out fine each time.”
It was not surprising to come across such a way of thinking in a society where the condition of those who toiled day and night was not much better than the condition of these two, and where those who took advantage of the weaknesses of the peasants were much better off than the peasants themselves.
Ghisu, it seems, was shrewder than the ordinary run of peasants, and rather than joining their thoughtless herd he had enlisted himself in the group of the sky and crafty ones. However, he didn’t have the ability to use the mores of the crafty to his advantage, and that is why others in his group had gone on to become leaders and headmen in the village whereas everyone pointed accusing fingers at him. Still, he had one consolation: no matter how wretched his condition he, unlike other peasants, was able to evade their back-breaking labour and no one could take advantage of his dumb simplicity.
The duo peeled the potatoes and hastily popped them into their mouths. Starving since the previous day they didn’t feel too hot, but as they dug in their teeth, the hot insides scalded their tongue, palate and throat. The safest thing to do at that moment was to gulp down the burning ember hurriedly and consign it to the place where it would cool down  soon enough. So they kept on gobbling up the potatoes frantically even as tears streamed down their eyes from the effort.
Ghisu was reminded of Thakur’s marriage, which he had attended twenty years ago. He remembered that extraordinary feast to this day. He said, “I can have such a bellyful. The bride’s side fed puris to everyone, big and small. Puris fried in pure ghee. And there was curd, three kinds of dry saag, one spicy curry, chutney, sweets and many other things. I can’t tell you how I relished it! There was no one to stop you. You could demand anything you wanted and eat as much as you liked. People gorged so much that there was no space for even a drop of water in their stomachs. But the servers kept on dishing out piping hot, fragrant kachauris. They didn’t listen to you even if you said no or raised your hand to restrain them. And when people finished eating and raised their mouths, they were served paan as well. But I had no desire left for paan as I could barely stand! I somehow managed to reach home and stretched out on my blanket… The Thakur was large hearted indeed!”
Madho listened to the description of the sumptuous list of delicacies with relish and said, “ I wish someone would feed us like that now.”
“Who’ll feed you now? Those times were different. Nowadays everyone is saving money. Stingy in marriages and weddings, stingy in rites and rituals. What are they going to do with all the money they grab from the poor people? I ask you. They are not tight fisted when it is a question of grabbing, they are so only when it comes to giving.”
“You must’ve stuffed yourself with at least twenty puris?”
“ More than twenty.”
“I would’ve polished off fifty.”
 “I must’ve eaten that many. I was a hefty fellow. You aren’t even half the size I was.”
They finished the potatoes and drank water. They covered themselves with their dhotis, tucked their knees up against their chests and went of to sleep right there beside the ashes of the fire.
Like two huge, coiled-up pythons.
Budhia was still writhing in pain.
Next morning, Madho went inside the shack to find his wife’s body stiff and cold. Flies were buzzing over her face. She was covered with dust and her two stony eyes were staring upwards vacantly. The child in her womb had died.
Madho rushed out to Ghisu and both began to howl and beat their chests. Hearing their lament the neighbours came running in panic and muttered the time-worn consolations.
But there was not much time for mourning. They had to arrange the firewood and shroud. Money was a scare in the house as meat in a eagle’s nest.
The father and the son went wailing to the zamindar of the village. He hated the very sight of them, and had thrashed them a couple of times with his own hands. For stealing, and for not showing up for work after they had promised to. He said, “What’s the matter, Ghisua? What are you howling for ? One doesn’t see your face nowadays. It seems you don’t want to live in this village.”
Ghisu prostrated himself before the zaminadar and said tearfully, “Sarkar, we’re in deep trouble. Madho’s wife died last night. She suffered the whole day. We kept sitting by her late into the night. Gave her all the medicines—the best we could. But she gave us the slip. We have no one left now to prepare a roti for us. Master, we’re ruined. My family is destroyed. Now, who will see her through her last rites except you? We spent whatever little we had on her treatment. She can be given her last rites only if you take mercy. We have no one else to turn to.”