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On seeing him lost in, absorbed completely in research studies
And paper-writing,
The foolish but rustic wife thinking within
Why does he read so much?
If he goes on reading in such a way and that too unmindful of all that,
Who will look after his home and hearth,
As he does not talk to me,
Will he forget me one day too?
Well, maybe he will go abroad, crossing the seven seas
And there he will fall in love with the gora memsahib,
A white European girl,
As the people say it rightly.
Youth-eaten and burnt, let me find a way out,
I shall teach you a lesson,
Why not to push your papers into the hearth
With dry cow dung cakes, leaves and woods,
Which will give me some respite.
He will talk with and smile with the English memsahib and I shall keep mum,
This I cannot let it happen,
Thought she the illiterate young wife of the reader,
The prospective scholar of the British time.
Why does he read, why does he my husband, why does he not take me
To the fair and the town,
Why does he not go to the cinema halls
To see films together?
Abused and abused, threw the things of the house after an altercation,
Weeping herself and flinging the things
The village wife, the rustic girl asking for love
And the husband lost in his studies, researches.
How long will you read, had been the question, how long will you go reading,
This had been the question of the young lady,
Which but he failed to answer
And instead went on reading to be thrown into the hearth?
And as thus came the day of judgement when she stealthily pushed the papers
Into the burning earthen oven
And the papers aflame
And she feeling happy in having burnt his theories.
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