Thank you to all those who liked and commented but I am in a hurry and cannot thank you in the right enough way. The sister of my grandmother passed away today morning and I learnt of it only when I returned from college. The funeral is on Saturday and so I will not be on the Forum today, tomorrow and on Saturday. So here's today's chapter as promised. Aura will update the next two chapters in the weekend and when I return on Sunday evening, I will update an awesome ArHi scene. I can't wait till I narrate it to you, my Comrades!! But for now, I leave you to this.
P. S. Do not worry about this Shyam. I won't make him rotten like the one we have in the show. I respect human psychology and I will make him a believable person.
Chapter Forty Nine: All Work and No Play
Lord Arnav was most eager in giving Kushi every kind of work he could find in his over-staffed factory. Since every labour was already occupied, he had to create extra work for her or grant a labourer with a one day break for Kushi to act substitute to get that labourer's work done. After the chores of cleaning his room and the horses, he gave her the task of measuring the length, breadth and weight of each sheet of loomed gold silk in the warehouse. The gold silk stacks towered twice her size in the warehouse and she had to spend the entire day to get their dimensions done. Every silk cloth had some little variation so she couldn't avoid any cloth from being sized. She had to do each and every one of them and she was monitored by a watchful Warehouse Manager, whom Lord Arnav had strictly said to see to it that she didn't play it easy. The Warehouse Manager had pity on her and tried to make her feel comfortable but he insisted that she do all the stacks since the Master might come and randomly inspect a piece of cloth against her parallel measurements.
Then there was another day when Lord Arnav forced her to work a whole day in the Silk Reeling Room. She had to do what she detested from the first day: boiling live silkworms in their cocoons. She was almost weeping and trying not to scream each time she picked up a cocoon adn dropped it into a boiling pot. The heat from the pots and furnace was not as blistering as the heat of her innocent guilt. Though Lord Arnav had not come to inspect her after she had done with the cleaning of horses and the measuring of gold silks, he did appear at the door of the Reeling Room when she had begun on her second set of degumming. He watched her restless and pained expression as she dropped the cocoons and how disturbingly she strained them later and began winding out the feeble silk thread from each cocoon. Her eyes were watery not from the heat, he knew, and he watched as she stared at the withered fleshless worm after it was freed from within its cocoon, home now coffin. The sight revolted her every time and she dropped the dead worm into a pail and rushed to dip her hand in fresh water.
"Oh Mother Goddess!" she pleaded softly with closed eyes, wishing that the water would wash away the sin from her hands, while Lord Aranv smirked and returned back to his office.
Later, when it was late in the afternoon, and the Industry was about to close for the day and all the labourers were leaving, Kushi asked the woman in Reeling Room to hand her the bucket and that she would dispose of the worms herself. The woman gladly offered her the pail.
Kushi rushed out with the pail and a shovel and walking to the nearest fringe of the forest, she dug a hole and when satisfied that it was deep enough, she emptied the entire bucket, wincing at the sad sloshing sound, and then hastily covered up the hole, patting the shovel upon the mound to smoothen it.
Then she knelt on the ground and bowed her head, "Please Mother Goddess, have pity on me and upon these murdered souls. I want no part in their blood. I was forced to do it by that," her teeth clenched when she said the next two words, "bloodless monster", and then she sighed, "And you know it. Please don't give him any ideas to make me do this again."
And it was a good thing that Lord Arnav was a man who liked having varied plans to instigate his interesting enemy. He never wanted her to do the same job again. He always wanted to try new adventures and threats on her. On the fourth day, he made her wash all the used work aprons of the laborers of the Industry and there were almost eighty labourers at the place. She grumbled as she worked and she just couldn't understand how over a day there could be such insurmountable dirt upon the aprons and how the dirt refused to get cleaned until she had scrubbed her hands to numbness. She was certain that Lord Arnav had sanctioned more stains to be pressed upon the aprons just for that day. The crazed scrubbing, the frequent dipping in the river water and the twirling and twisting to drain the water off each apron were immense strain for her feeble hands.
But it was followed by even more hassle that day. Not just her hands but her legs were made to tire out too. The feat of getting to dry the eighty or more aprons on the vast fields was the real test. She was certain Lord Arnav had called upon the strange rain that day. It was sunny one moment and then it suddenly began pouring and she was running hither-thither, snatching up the aprons before the rain touched them and then when she had all aprons saved but slightly wet, suddenly the sun would smile down and she would reluctantly lay the aprons down again. After a while, when she was not expecting, suddenly the clouds screened the sun and before she had picked up the tenth apron from the ground, rain was upon the land and she was distraughtly picking wet aprons. And to add to the rain, sometimes , when it was sunny there was wind and it blew away the light and almost-dried aprons and Kushi had to run all over the land to collect them,. When one was blown away and she ran after it, she would return to count them and realize there was one or two missing and ran all over the place searching for them.
After the fourth downpour, a frustrated and a thoroughly angry Kushi barged into the room at the rear of the Industry with her pack of wet aprons and lay them on the floor. There was no one in the room at that time since it was still working time in the Industry and she had the huge room to herself. She found ropes and tied them from one end of the room to the other before the huge fireplace, and then she hung all the aprons upon the ropes. The entire room was clustered with hanging aprons and Kushi sat fueling the fireplace and under its patience blazing, Kushi dried the aprons and also managed to calm her angered mind.
"Count them up," said Lord Arnav when the Industry was about to be closed and Kushi was standing before him and Master Aman with a sample stack of aprons balanced in her hands, the stack reaching almost to the height of her mouth. At her rear, on a table, were the remaining stacks of dried, neatly folded aprons.
"They are all here, sire," said Master Aman, after counting them under his Master's watch.
Lord Arnav walked towards her and hissed, "This you have fared, but it's not over yet, beggar."
Kushi looked into his fiery eyes and said, "I will still keep fighting, sire."
"I'm looking forward to it," he said sarcastically, before he adorned his hat and was walking out of the Industry.
Master Aman came and stood next to her, "It is brave of you, Miss Gupta." He gazed at her with utmost admiration.
"It is strange, Master Aman," said Kushi, smiling, "But his determination to weaken me fuels my fire to not be defeated."
Master Aman nodded, awed by the truth in her words, and then they parted.
Kushi reached home that night to a warm cup of tea and plenteous food to retain all her lost energy. She was in such an elated mood that she sat at her desk and decided to write a letter to Babuji. She had taken out a stack of inexpensive parchments, when an envelope slipped down and she realized it was the General's letter. Sitting by the window, she read it again and then frowned, "I am being most rude to a man who saved me twice by not thanking him for being kind to me. I suppose I must send him at least one reply."
She sat down at the table and lit a candle, and while Payal soundly sleeping in bed behind her, Kushi dipped her tiny quill into the inkbottle and began writing out the reply:
Honourable General Jha,
I am not very learned and I don't know how far my spellings may stand correct. But I must write this letter to thank you for your letter and for asking after my health. I am most fine and you may be happy to know that I am currently employed at the very Industry you had led me to find refuge in. I have you to thank for my present job, since, adding to the fact that I am alive and breathing because you pulled me out of the river when you did, I am now capable of being of service to humankind through my work at the Industry. Not that I see any humanity in silk manufacturing, which I must tell you is a detestable profession for it is murdersome and cruel. But of course, there is no use telling otherwise, for the man who runs the Industry is himself a horrendous creature and exists merely to create an exclusive hell for me. Oh dear, I have gone and written more than I had intended to, so I am stopping for now. Once again, thank you sire, for everything.
Regards, Kushi Kumari Gupta.
Kushi put her quill down and smiled at the letter. She loved writing what was on her mind and she also loved writing her name in full. There was a grand glory to being a 'Kushi Kumari Gupta'. She could think of no other name that would suit her.
Rolling the tiny parchment and tying it with a string, she wrote: To Sir General Jha, Active in a Battalion, East of Arhasia, on the front clasp and placed it at one end of table. She would give it to Buaji in the morning and she might know someone who can pass the message to wherever the General was.
Yawning, Kushi walked to the bed and tucked next to Payal who moaned when Kushi tried to make herself some space and then the young girl was fast asleep, gathering comfort and strength in her dreams before she faced the monsters of the morning.
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