Chapter 264

Chapter 343: Revenge in the Market

It is a known knowledge that villages celebrate manifold festivals, many falling within each season of the year.

Every first day of spring, the Village in our story rejoiced for the new phase of nature. Their celebration included music and dance in the Market with much festivity. People came in a parade and they had to dress up in costumes, which found an especial participation from the youngsters and children of the Village.

A week after the incident we heard of in the previous chapter, the Market was decked in colour and lights for the parade and the air with the music of flutes, kanjiras and dholaks sounding from every street, cheering people's spirits and inviting them to dress up and dance in the parade.

The schoolmaster, on the insistence of the imploring children, decided to permit a day without school. He comforted himself in the thought that he could get a day's rest without having to worry about the children and the nuisances they could furnish every new day.

The youngsters of the village spent the entirety of the week preceding the parade to decide upon a costume and then ask their mothers to stitch.

Though the Varmas and Maliks were against fancy-dressing on festivals and dancing in parades, they permitted their respective offspring to share in the fun, knowing it would impress the people that the family did not look down on the Village festivity methods.

When the parade was in full swing, young people dressed in various finishes of many colours danced down the streets to the music of the drums and flutes.

Raoul was dressed in a rishi's white robe and had even managed a white wig. Dev, fascinated by the visitors to their country, dressed himself up in an Englishman's costume which he'd nicked from the local washerman's stall. He'd gotten his oblivious grandmother to trim the sleeves and legs of the suit to fit his size, put on his father's hat and made himself look like a fine little Englishman.

Chandraki was restless and had almost driven her mother livid with her whining of not having a good costume to decide upon. Her father had chanced on the moment and, subsequently, engrossed her in one of the paintings hanging on the wall. Chandraki was captivated, indeed, and arranged with her mother to spin her an attire just like the one donned by Shakuntala in the painting.

Finally, after her mother had dressed her up, tied her hair up and put flowers in the bun, Chandraki picked up an empty clay pot, held it to her hip and strolled proudly out to the Market parade to amaze the other girls.

Some children, disinterested in demure costumes of persona, had eagerly dressed themselves as elephants, tigers, peacocks, butterflies, flowers, trees, stars and rainbows. Everyone was in their cheerful best and nothing could possibly mar the merriments.

For a protracted time, the children played games, ate sweets and danced to the music of the magnificent parade.

When the afternoon waned to nearing dusk, the parade was concluded and they were all parting for their homes.

Raoul and Dev made way through the crowd of the Market towards where the oxen carts were waiting, among which one would take them to their mansion. In the bustle of the crowd, however, our little Englishman lost sight of his brother and he was standing at the spot contemplating whether to turn around and find Raoul or to head for the oxen carts and wait for him there, when a voice called to him from behind him, "What a pretty Englishwoman you make! Frills on your sleeves and a fitting tail for your coat!"

Instantly recognizing the voice, Dev's frown returned and he turned about and faced Chandraki, her clay pot still held to her hip.

His sly eye nodded at the pot, "Let me guess: portable toilet?"

Chandraki turned red in anger, "It's a water pot, you idiot. Have you never heard of Shakuntala?!"

Dev lifted his head proudly, "Isn't she the mad woman who talks to trees?"

"She loves nature and looks to creation as a friend would," defended Chandraki.

Dev chuckled, "What a friend of nature she must have been that the fish swallowed her ring and made her cry for many years!"

Chandraki huffed, "What despicable taste in arts you have, oaf! No wonder you're dressed like an impoverished Englishwoman! Where is that stupid friend of yours?"

"He's ill and his father forbid him the parade," said Dev, and then eyed her suspiciously, "Why do you ask for him?"

Chandraki grinned, "To be assured that you are alone and defenceless."

"I'm not scared of you," laughed Dev, "Alone, I can face anything, least of all you."

Chandraki snorted, "Puny little Malik, always a high-talker."

And then, holding her pot to her hips, she began walking around him as though studying him.

"What are you doing?" Dev demanded, eyeing her as he turned in circles where he stood so that he never had his back turned to his enemy.

"Taking a look at your tail," she sneered, one of her hands reaching out and tugging at his coat tails.

"HEY! Watch it!" he yelled hotly, turning on her, "Don't touch my-"

In his fury at being scrutinized by his archenemy, Dev had turned about at her so quickly that, amidst the rushing crowd, his elbow knocked into Chandraki 's elbow and the clay pot in her hand slipped from its cove and came crashing down on his foot.

The pot had smashed as a product of the enemy's contact and Chandraki, after staring horror-stricken at the shattered mess of her pot, shot him a fiery glare that provoked Dev to step back hastily as though his feet had been stung by a most venomous snake.

But the hastiness with which he'd stepped backwards, made him lose his balance and he fell on his back to the ground with a surprised yell.

Chandraki's visage of violence faded when she grasped that her enemy had toppled himself over, most conveniently indeed, right onto the dung of the nearest ox.

Revived in devilish delight, she laughed aloud and teased him thus, "Look how pretty you look now, Englishwoman! Or should I say, Dungface!" That had served him right ofcourse, for pushing her into mire last week and calling her Mudface!

Victory beamed on her face which, in the next moment, instantly dimmed on comprehension that a large crowd had gathered around them, witnessing the spectacle.

And then she froze on recognizing the face that had just appeared in the crowd.

Her father, Veer Varma, had been passing by the Market, quite by coincidence, when some concerned villager informed him that his child and a Malik lad were in a confrontation.

All of a sudden, Chandraki burst into tears and ran to her father crying, "Papa, that Malik boy teased me and he pushed me last day at school into the paddy field!"

Dev looked up as he got to his feet, one side of his face obscure with dung while he glared at the girl. His brother Raoul arrived just then and the costumed-rishi tried to speak in defence of his little brother but the short tempered Varma would not hear of it.

No one need guess what happened next, of course.

No sooner had the fight between the two been displayed in public and brought the attention and presence of the respective father figures than Rajendra Singh Malik and Veer Varma turned the matter into a familial war, spitting curses and spouting fiery rebukes at each other.

The villagers withdrew from visiting either house or even accidently crossing them in the Market for a few days, in fear of being scorched by the profanity hauled betwixt each other.

In the end, the dispute was settled thus: they decided to take their children out of the Village School and never afford a chance for them to encounter each other in the Market or its outskirts ever again.

The matter of the children's education was to be arranged separately. Since both the families were in competition to better the prospects of their respective offspring and also since the incoming British were easy catch (for they were, in that beginning phase, coming with sweet promises and had yet to master the art of their colonial claws), the Maliks and Varmas assumed that it would be a prestigious pact if their heirs were personally trained by foreigners.

The elder Malik decided to overlook the huge expense and invite aged, learned Englishmen to teach his boys directly at his mansion, away from the Village and the Varma-ocities.

The Varma patriarch himself went many steps ahead: he decided to send his child abroad to London where she would continue her studies in the most fashionable and esteeming way as was possible for a child of that time.

On hearing that the Varmas had sent their daughter to London for her education, the Malik pater was furious but, gradually, found appeasement by repeating the aphorism, "That vile Varma had to send his daughter to London, but my boys had London come to them!"

Nevertheless, whatever disputes prevailed between the families, slowly quietened down after the children were separated and everyone went about their daily affairs. Everything returned back to normal and peace persisted in the Village and its outskirts though Devananda and his little troop, supported by PrakashPrakash, were always maintaining the mischievousness in the territory.

As years passed, people soon forgot all about the past and occupied themselves in the humdrum of life, and I would too and so would you. But this story, which you have been hearing for so long and which you hold close to your heart, would never have happened and would never be written, if things hadn't picked up again after the passing of eight years.