Ganje and Phulmaya's Troubled Relationship

“I am telling the truth, Ganje!” Fulmaya heard a familiar voice from near the mango tree. She stood, holding her breath, with her dhoti clinging to her. “The whole village stinks like a corpse.” She recognized the speaker as Kanchha, the moneylender. “If you are a man with hair on your chest, think carefully. What do I say?” Fulmaya’s heart swelled. It was pitch dark. Ganje, sitting silently on the bench in front of the hut, was hunched over. Stars twinkled through the dense mango leaves. The sky was clear and blue. Seeing the magnificent beauty of the starry sky, his heart felt a pang. His mind was clouded. His chest felt like it would burst. “Come eat rice... what are you brooding about?” Fulmaya, sitting with her buttocks on a dry stool near the hearth, called out in a suppressed voice. Her mind was also lost in gloomy thoughts. How quickly time flies and how quickly happy days end! It had been fifteen years since her marriage. She had come here as a bride when Ganje won a singing duel. Ganje was so charming, lovable, and good then! How happy she felt when her husband looked at her with loving eyes and joked. Her dreams were that this joy, this sweetness, this colorfulness of life would last forever. But those dreams vanished into dreams. Those two birds sang songs of love in unison. While lost in song, they experienced a strange warmth of youth. As their love grew, they became very intimate. After Ganje left for the plains, lured by the village youths, that joy, that sweetness, and that warmth also left for the plains. Orphaned from birth, Ganje was deprived of his mother’s love from the age of five. Having to grow up on his uncle’s mercy, he was cheated in the property division. Denied the work and livelihood that his youthful desires craved, he was cheated out of the village’s festivities. Cheated again and again, he became a pitiable skeleton of bone and flesh. And his one life was wasted. Fulmaya came out and sat beside her husband. “Does your heart hurt again?” she felt his chest. “My whole life hurts,” Ganje replied in a voice mixed with anguish. “What happened?” Fulmaya caressed her husband’s arm. “What?” Ganje tried to scold his wife, turning his face away. “You’re a witch, you’re a sorceress, you’re a fool!” “I’ve had enough living with you,” he said in a voice of extreme weariness. “Are you mad again?” Fulmaya’s voice was sympathetic. “Listening to your talk tears my chest apart. My eardrums are ringing, I want to die.” “Nonsense!” “Even if I go, it’s ruin, disgrace, and humiliation. You’ve put a nose ring on me.” “You put the nose ring on yourself,” Fulmaya said stubbornly. “I tried to clean your nose. You wrongly crowned me a prostitute.” “What?” Ganje tried to scold his wife, turning his face away. “You’re a witch, you’re a sorceress, you’re a fool!” “Don’t puff up your backside,” Fulmaya’s voice was not angry, but loving. “You’ve spoiled the son too,” he changed the subject. “They say he’s become the leader of the vagrants. Such worms try to change the ways of the world. What can you say about that father’s son?” He wrinkled his nose. “He tries to show off to the village elders. There should be some respect, some decorum, some gentleness. You’ve destroyed the good fortune of my house.” “Good fortune?” Anger flared in Fulmaya’s veins. “Aren’t you ashamed? You don’t even have the ability to give others wings. You don’t have the love to give wings to your own heart and fly away. If the son wants to fly with his own wings, why are you jealous? Let the flying bird fly wherever it wants.” “If he gets you jailed too, don’t call me Ganje.” “You’re unfortunate. Even when you’re ruined by your own bad judgment, you don’t learn. Instead, you bother me.” Listening to the conversation, Fulmaya was fed up. Was her life better than a prisoner’s life? Was there any suffering, insult, and oppression left for her to endure? “I am in a hell worse than jail. Am I afraid?” Fulmaya muttered. “I won’t live in this hell. I’d rather be a beggar. This burden is too much for me.” “You be quiet,” Fulmaya tried to shut her husband’s mouth. “If you’re not a beggar, what else do you have? You, who destroyed our whole household, are now picking a fight with me, an unfortunate woman? You’re going mad following the one who sank your life’s ship. You’re a good-for-nothing, you’re not even fit to be a servant in this world.” “Prostitute!” Ganje shouted, grabbing Fulmaya. “You’ve made me a prostitute’s husband.” “You’re unfortunate. Even when you’re ruined by your own bad judgment, you don’t learn. Instead, you bother me.” Huddled together, the husband and wife sat apart. “Dad!” The little daughter clung to her father’s knees. He caressed his daughter’s cheeks. “I am separating from you,” Ganje said in a voice filled with regret and despair. “From today, I am separated from you.” “Idols of sin without mercy!” Fulmaya cursed. “If you have no love in your heart, no one fears your threats.” “Love in front of disgrace...” his lips trembled. His veins throbbed. Dizziness overwhelmed him, and his world spun. His eyes filled with tears. “The sinful world has swallowed my love whole!” Ganje was sitting on one side of a square platform under a dense mango tree by the riverbank. And Fulmaya on the other side. “You don’t care about your wife and children. You’ve become a slave to the moneylender’s whispers.” With a dark face and shaking his head, Ganje remained silent. A pool of regret, disgust, and shame had formed in his chest. ००० Ganje was sitting on one side of a square platform under a dense mango tree by the riverbank. And Fulmaya on the other side. Disturbing the desolate loneliness of the pitch-dark night, the river, after the flood subsided, was flowing hastily, falling into some ravine, tumbling down some slope. Perhaps similar rivers of restlessness and anguish were flowing in Ganje and Fulmaya’s hearts. “Do you have a lighter?” Ganje asked. “Yes.” “A cigarette?” “A stub.” “Light it.” Ganje drew on the wet cigarette stub, puffing and straining the veins in his neck. Unable to fill his lungs with smoke, his craving grew. “Don’t you have a whole cigarette?” “Go to Kanchha, the moneylender, he has a whole carton.” “Are you talking nonsense?” “When you have a straight throat, how can you get a cigarette?” “If you had ears to hear good advice, your life would be different.” “Listen here.” After sitting hunched over for a long time, Ganje finally spoke. “Let’s move to the square upstairs. It seems enough has been taken from the apple market.” “Is your God sitting in the square?” “I’ve been so disgraced here, you fool! My liver is burning.” “Do you want to stay here and endure this humiliation?” “Where is the liver that doesn’t burn for someone who has no grain in their granary and no gold in their chest?” “Still...” Ganje thought for a moment and said in a voice that seemed to fade in his throat, “We won’t have to see the enemy’s eyes. We won’t have to hear heart-piercing words. There will be a constant flow of visitors. Tea and water will sell well there. What do you say?” “After looting the house, Kanchha the moneylender drove us out of the village. And the apple market became our refuge. Now, because our honor was looted there, we should move to the square market? Have you seen any place where Kanchha’s ghost doesn’t linger? Wherever we go, it’s Kanchha’s debt, his wife’s words, the famine’s fire, and life’s misery. It’s the same everywhere!” “Do you want to stay here and endure this humiliation?” “Wherever we go, the story is the same. Either learn or die.” Ganje sighed. “You’ve destroyed everything of mine – my wealth, my honor, my family tradition, everything...” “I destroyed your wealth?” Fulmaya became furious. “Did I destroy your wealth, or did Vyadha Kanchha the moneylender destroy it?” Raising her frightening eyes, she looked at her husband as if to snatch his soul. “Why can’t you ever tell Kanchha the moneylender that you destroyed my wealth? Are your eyes sunken? Do you see the world upside down?” “Are you still talking?” “Why shouldn’t I talk?” She shrugged, her nostrils flaring in surprise. “You’re still saying I destroyed your honor? How dare you speak! You’re the one who put a lid on honor. It was your carelessness, your bad judgment, your uselessness...” “I told you not to talk, shut up.”