The Tragic Displacement of Phulmaya: A Story of Poverty and Exploitation

Suffocated by the world's monstrous ways and the terrifying misery of life, Phulmaya could find nowhere to rest her broken heart. With weary eyes, she looked at the distant hill her husband, Ganje, had climbed when he left for Muglan. That hill looked as fearsome as a moneylender devoid of all human emotion. Then, her eyes climbed toward the towering hill to the east. At the foot of that hill stood her small hut—her refuge where she hid to weep in times of sorrow.

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Below the hut was a small plot of land, barely enough to sow three measures of grain. It was the support of her life. When that hut and land were in their hands, her loving Ganje, with whom she shared laughter and tears, was by her side. Now, that hut and land had become alien, and through misfortune, Ganje had become like a stranger too.

Phulmaya sat brooding, her head in her hands. The steep climbs and descents of her past life were terrifying. "We cannot survive like this," Ganje had once complained to Phulmaya in frustration. "Every year the children grow. All we have is that measly three-measure plot, and even that is as dry and barren as a demon's chest.

The world is growing crowded day by day. Modern education has raised a flock of rogues and idlers. Fate did not write knowledge or skill on my forehead. The era where one could work as a farmhand for a landlord is gone, do you understand? For those without money in a box or a skill in their hands, the world is dark. The recruiters have arrived. Young men from the village are flocking to Malaya and India. What do you say?"

"The house will be left alone. The son is a minor. And this one in my womb..."

"To survive in life, one needs either courage or a bag of wealth. Suffering now leads to happiness later. Whose wife isn't left alone? The sinful burden of poverty is lonely. Why do you block the path of my destiny?"

Phulmaya sat silently, feeling uneasy.

"If I can get to Malaya, money will flow like a river in five years. Haven't you seen Thute from Siruwari? Even a simpleton like him brought back bundles of rupees, so I... It is only a separation of seven or ten years. Besides, there is leave every few months. It is only the heart that feels the distance. Seeing the pride of that simpleton Thute makes me feel ashamed."

Phulmaya felt as if a burning coal of disaster was about to fall upon her head. Remembering the hardships of daily life and the malicious glares of neighbors, she could not bring herself to say "don't go." And thinking of the child yet to be born and her young son, she could not find the courage to say "go."

"Leaving me in such distress?"

"Distress is a lifelong companion of the poor, my dear," Ganje said, furrowing his brow. "If you dwell on distress, it becomes huge. If you crush it, it fades. Should we forget tomorrow's path because of today's fear? Is it fitting for a son to sit at home killing lice? A son's nature is to show valor. Without seeing the world, a son's intellect does not sharpen. Moreover, our ship of survival has already sunk. Enough! If you want our children to be servants to the landlord, what can I say?"

Phulmaya wiped her tears with a dark expression. Ganje felt relieved, interpreting her silence as consent.

"As long as there is integrity, one finds relatives in the world," Ganje said, coaxing Phulmaya. "There is my sister to help in times of need. If we maintain good relations with neighbors, they will look after us in times of trouble. It is a matter of a few months, then I will arrange for the expenses. I will put an end to the struggle for household costs. Do not be anxious thinking of the pain of separation."

000

"I wandered everywhere all day," Ganje said, sighing as he sat down after arriving at dusk. "This money is a life-killing thing. Even when I begged, no one trusted me with travel expenses. Money only trusts money. Who trusts a pauper?"

"How much do you need?" Phulmaya asked in a faint voice.

"A lot! About five hundred. I have to bribe the recruiter. Once I'm recruited, I need a set of clothes. I have to cover travel expenses. Who knows, even that might not be enough?"

Phulmaya looked at Ganje and the child in her lap, Chature, with sorrowful eyes.

"Instead, if we could just work someone else's field and survive here... That place across seven seas! An alien land where the heart doesn't even reach..."

"Bah! What cowardly talk? Leaving the joys of heaven to knowingly jump into the hell of misery? Working a landlord's field is for the weak. A man with hair on his chest and a mustache on his lip does not fear Muglan, let alone a tiger's pounce. The world is industry, valor, and war..."

The funny thing was, no matter how much Ganje boasted, he had neither hair on his chest nor a proper mustache on his lip.

"If I go, this house and land might be lost," he said in a voice mixed with courage and anxiety. "Even if I have to sign the house and land over to Landlord Kancha, I must walk the path my heart sees. For a man like me to beg in a hundred places and not find five hundred... damn this life!"

Phulmaya's mind was trapped in her own hopeless thoughts. Ganje's courage did not increase hers. Ganje's inner heat did not burn her heart.

"If we lose both here and there, we will be homeless."

"Fate is a companion of the brave. Either a son or a hero shows courage. Is there nothing written on this forehead? That is how it is; one who goes to war either loses his life or gains honor, or carries a bag of wealth as a reward."

As soon as she heard the name of Landlord Kancha, Phulmaya suddenly remembered the Landlord's wife. The mean, heartless, and gossiping woman. Was she to treat that woman like a goddess?

"If you have to sign a deed, can't you find a better landlord?"

"Can one ever choose a landlord?"

"That woman is terribly wicked."

"All those who have risen from the top are like that."

The next morning, the village elders gathered on Landlord Kancha's porch. The paperwork was done in a grave atmosphere. Ganje's heart beat rhythmically, drowned in an incomprehensible feeling of fear, doubt, and restlessness. He felt as if he were about to climb a heavenly ladder of great danger. A ladder that was neither firmly planted nor supported as it should be. He consoled himself, thinking that the path a pauper walks is always a trap.

"Twenty percent interest on the hundred," Landlord Kancha said in a royal tone, shaking a bundle of notes. "And you have prepared the gift of ghee, right, Ganje?"

"Yes, sir! I have handed over whatever I had."

"Look Ganje! I don't know long stories. One must respect those who deserve respect."

"What can I say, sir? It's hard to say."

"Well, I saw a goat at your place," said Pradhan Baje, licking his lips.

"Sir! I have vowed that to Goddess Kalika."

"Well... call a shaman and transfer the vow to a chicken, and the problem is solved."

"I vowed it in times of trouble, sir. It is a poor man's promise."

"Forget it! I don't know long stories. So, what do you say?" Landlord Kancha asked.

"I am stunned, sir! I have fallen from the sky."

According to the agreement, Ganje received three hundred and fifty rupees. One hundred was deducted for interest. The remaining fifty went toward the debt for Dashain clothes. As he counted the notes, licking his fingers, Ganje's eyes blurred.

"May you live happily as a captain, Ganje," Landlord Kancha said, holding the paperwork after everything was finished.

"May your blessings be with me, sir! May the poor rise up."

"As for me, the matter is twofold," Pradhan Baje said in a playful and slippery voice. "I say, may the deed lift Landlord Kancha up, and may the army lift Ganje up. As a social worker, I see a double welfare in this. This is my principle."

"Yes... Pradhan Baje's words are like Lord Krishna's," Landlord Kancha agreed, a smile dancing on his lips. "That is why he is Pradhan Baje."

Ganje walked home, startled as if carrying a snake in his pocket.

"A goat for ghee on top of a hundred rupees? Didn't I tell you to find a better landlord?" Phulmaya grumbled.

"Stop nagging. We must understand that the world doesn't run on the whims of those without power. He is a robber, but what can we do?"

As days passed, the day for Ganje to leave arrived. He went to Paklihawa for a medical check-up. Seven days later, Phulmaya heard that Ganje had failed the medical. While she waited for him to return, news came that he had become dejected and fled to Muglan. Phulmaya was left in total despair. A month passed, then two, five, and twelve. Ganje neither joined the army, nor sent a letter, nor returned himself.

"They say people go mad when overwhelmed by grief. Alas! I hope that doesn't happen," Ganje used to say to Phulmaya. Those words stung Phulmaya's heart.

The deadline for the agreement arrived on Shree Panchami.

"Any news of your husband?" Landlord Kancha asked, appearing suddenly like a thief.

"No, sir... no trace of him."

"The deadline is almost up, daughter. He must have sent some money, right?"

"I don't even know if he is dead or alive, sir! What money?"

"According to the promise, you will have to leave the house and land, Thuli! What will you do, child? Business is sinful. Love and affection have no power here."

"I am a lone woman, sir! He is a man. He will come one day. How could he break his word?"

"Ganje turned out to be a great thief," Landlord Kancha said in a harsh, intimidating voice. "He is consumed by disease. On top of that, he turned out to be a long-term runaway. My heart has died toward that traitor. That wretch neither remembered his family nor his honor. You know the paperwork. Once the deadline passes, you must vacate the house and land, understand?"

"Where can I go, a lone woman?" Phulmaya asked, startled. "Even if he broke his word, I have done no wrong, sir."

"Are you trying to say he is not my husband?"

"What, sir?"

"The matter of paperwork is harder than a thunderbolt, child! It is better to leave the house with dignity than to be dragged out by others, do you hear?"

Phulmaya, her spirit crushed, stared blankly at Landlord Kancha.

Nearly a year later, Ganje sent a letter. In that long letter, he had gathered all the hardships, sorrows, and restlessness he had faced since leaving home. Hearing it, a sob burst from Phulmaya's bruised chest.

"I long to see the child in your lap," Ganje had written. "You must have thought your husband is a sinner for not writing for so long. What to do? For the hungry, rice is more important than sweet advice. No rice cooked in my hearth. Fate wrote nothing for me. Give my respects to Landlord Kancha. And beg our friends to help keep the house and land. Life is like this, my dear! Do not cry thinking of me."

But Phulmaya cried. Holding the child in her lap to her chest, she wept, grinding her teeth and clutching her heart. That sorrowful letter written by one sufferer to another touched Phulmaya's soft heart everywhere, and she wept.

"Ganje! My life! My companion in sorrow!"

000

The village elders gathered once more at Landlord Kancha's house to cut the throat of an orphaned mother with the saw of the law.

"Sir!" Phulmaya pleaded, panicked as the issue of eviction arose. "Where can I, a helpless woman, go after leaving the home of my ancestors? Have mercy on me. My husband has sent his respects in the letter. He has asked to extend the deadline for a year."

"Enough... do not mention the name of that traitorous beggar. He is rotten. Even if he is in Muglan, I can see his insides from here. That half-baked man has become a slave to a foreign landlord because no one trusted him. Gambling, drinking, whoring... oh! His misdeeds are beyond description. Don't say Landlord Kancha is mean; if that madman returns, I will cut off his ears and throw them in filth."

Phulmaya writhed as she heard those words, sharper than a needle. She felt as if she were about to faint.

"The law is like a khukuri that cuts both ways," Pradhan Baje said, asserting his authority. "Just as the khukuri cuts the blacksmith, the law cuts even me. This business is such that the agreement must be fulfilled. Therefore, I conclude that the law follows Landlord Kancha. So, you must accept your fate and be satisfied. And according to the agreement, Phulmaya must quietly hand over the house and land to Landlord Kancha."

"This is a disaster for me, a lone woman, Baje!"

"I didn't say it wasn't," Pradhan Baje said, shedding tears from his knees. "I say it is an even greater disaster. But isn't a life of suffering bound by law a disaster itself?"

"I seek refuge, sir! May my home not be uprooted."

"No, Landlord Kancha, this is a mortal life. Could you adjust the paperwork and give this woman some land, perhaps on a sharecropping basis? My heart is soaked in tears hearing her pleas."

"There is no trusting her, Pradhan Baje!" Landlord Kancha said, wrinkling his nose. "My capital will sink."

"She... this two-faced woman must be driven out today," the Landlord's wife said, bowing her head and walking out, speaking harsh words. "This gossiping woman will tarnish the village's reputation."

"Witch!" Phulmaya cursed in her heart, staring with wide eyes.

"Sita Ram! Sita Ram!! Sita Ram!!!" Pradhan Baje drawled. "I see the matter has come to an end."

"A world with teeth in its side!" With a flame of heat in her heart and a stream of tears in her eyes, Phulmaya rose and walked away, feeling faint.

Seven days later, like a cat moving its kittens, Phulmaya moved her children to the leaf-market at the crossroads.

When the benevolent Landlord Kancha, known as the living statue of mercy, came to Phulmaya's unfortunate hut early in the morning to spread happiness and peace, was there any reason for a sting not to enter his heart?