Time before dinner was spent starting quarrels among the maidservants, and then settling them, and listening to village gossip. They did no work; peals of laughter could be heard until midnight.

Besides Rukuni, Marua, Chemi, Nakaphodi, Teri, Bimali, Suki, Pata, and Kausuli, there were many other maidservants in the house; we do not know all of them by name. Some were child widows, some had been widowed young, and some were born widows; only a few had husbands. Like birds of different feathers seeking shelter in a large tree, they had flocked to Mangaraj’s house. They kept arriving and leaving; it was impossible to keep track of their movements. When a crowd of maidservants with nothing to do gather in one place, what can they do but fight?

Mangaraj’s household was no exception to this eternal law. Until midnight it was filled with noise, like a fish market.

Chapter Six

Champa

Of the many people in Mangaraj’s household, it was Champa, alias Mistress Champa, alias Harakala, whose relationship with the master was the most mysterious. Little too was known about her caste, her family background, or her lineage. And it was beyond anybody’s power to decide whether she was the lady of the house or a mere maidservant. All that can be said is that Champa wielded a great deal of authority in Mangaraj’s household, while his wife’s presence was hardly felt there at all. Farmhands, laborers, the clerks in Mangaraj’s office—everyone recognized Champa’s power. Although one of her names was Harakala, the mistress of all wicked arts, no one dared address her as that. We should add that we have been unable to determine the origin of this name; we don’t know whether it expresses praise or blame.

One day, when someone told Champa that behind her back people called her this, she was outraged and burst into tears. She went straight to Mangaraj to complain. There was a hectic search for the culprit; people ran around for two days, but it was neverdiscovered where the name had originated and how far it had spread. In the end, Mangaraj gave up, saying, “Don’t worry, we’ll find the person responsible. Beware, no one should call Champa Harakala!” That day, from one end of the village to the other, the villagers warned each other: “Beware, no one should call Champa Harakala!” For months, whenever they met, men and women, young and old, would repeat to one another: “Beware, no one should call Champa Harakala.” Gradually the warning became more and more clipped: “Beware no one should call Champa”; then simply, “Beware.” Finally, little children danced in the village street, clapping and singing:

“Beware, Beware! Here comes Gabara Jena, Chowkidar!” Children are always naughty, and so we shall take no notice of what they say. What is to be gained by paying attention to such things anyway?

At this point we should tell our readers that they will meet Champa often in the course of this tale, since she was very closely connected to Mangaraj’s household. And so it is important for us to describe her person and her character carefully. The most revered and classical rules of literature require writers to draw the portrait of their heroes and heroines in traditionally pre-scribed ways. We are not in a position to violate these divinely sanctioned principles.

But our writers have a major weakness. When it comes to talking about the heroine of their tales, they behave as though they have chanced upon something very delectable and do nothing but describe her beauty, forgetting everything else about her. As for us, it is not that we do not know how to describe the beauty of a heroine. Consider how ridiculously easy it is. According to classical literary techniques, all one has to do is find parallels between specific attributes of our heroine Champa and different fruits, such as bananas, jack-fruits, or mangoes, and common trees, leaves, and flowers. But such old-fashioned methods are no longer suitable; for our English-educated babus we now have to adopt an English style. Classical Indian poets compare the gait of a beautiful woman to that of an elephant. The babus frown on such a comparison; they would rather the heroine “galloped like a horse.” The way English culture is rushing in like the first floods of the River Mahanadi, we suspect that our newly educated and civilized babus will soon appoint whip-cracking train-ers to teach their gentle female companions to gallop.

In any case, we too are of the opinion that not a single classical poet has succeeded in finding a metaphor befitting the gait of a beautiful lady. How absurd to compare four-footed creatures, such as horses and elephants, to women! Our heroine, Champa, has only two legs; we must express our inability to imagine how she would look walking on all fours. As she has two legs, it might, however, not be inappropriate to liken her to a swan.

Going strictly by the Alankar Shastra, apt similes and metaphors should be used at all times: a swan sometimes waddles; at other times, it half-jumps, half-flies.