Podi Moyrani—A Sweetmeat Maker.
FIRST ACT—FIRST SCENE.
Svaropur—Goluk Chunder’s Gola or Store-house.
Goluk Chunder Basu and Sadhu Churn sitting.
Sadhu. Master I told you then we cannot live any more in this country. You did not hear me however. A poor man’s word bears fruit after the lapse of years.
Goluk. O my child! Is it easy to leave one’s country? My family has been here for seven generations. The lands which our fore-fathers rented have enabled us never to acknowledge ourselves servants of others. The rice which grows, provides food for the whole year, means of hospitality to guests, and also the expense of religious services; the mustard seed we get, supplies oil for the whole year, and, besides, we can sell it for about sixty or seventy rupees. Svaropur is not a place where people are in want.—It has rice, peas, oil, molasses from its fields, vegetables in the garden, and fish from the tanks;—whose heart is not torn when obliged to leave such a place? And who can do that easily?
Sadhu. Now it is no more a place of happiness: your garden is already gone, and your relatives are on the point of forsaking you. Ah! it is not yet three years since the Saheb took a lease of this place, and he has already ruined the whole village. We cannot bear to turn our eyes in the southern direction towards the house of the heads of the villages (Mandal). Oh! what was it once, and what is it now! Three years ago, about sixty men used to make a daily feast in the house; there were ten ploughs, and about forty or fifty oxen; as to the court-yard, it was crowded like as at the horse races; when they used to arrange the ricks of corn, it appeared, as it were, that the lotus had expanded itself on the surface of a lake bordered by sandal groves; the granary was as large as a hill; but last year the granary not being repaired, was on the point of falling into the yard. Because he was not allowed to plant Indigo in the rice-field, the wicked Saheb beat the Majo and Sajo Babus most severely; and how very difficult was it to get them out of his clutches; the ploughs and kine were sold, and at that crisis the two Mandals left the village.
Goluk. Did not the eldest Mandal go to bring his brethren back?
Sadhu. They said, we would rather beg from door to door than go to live there again. The eldest Mandal is now left alone, and he has kept two ploughs, which are nearly always engaged in the Indigo-fields. And even this person is making preparations for flying off. Oh, Sir! I tell you also to throw aside this infatuated attachment (maya) for your native place. Last time your rice went, and this time, your honour will go.
Goluk. What honor remains to us now? The Planter has prepared his places of cultivation round about the tank, and will plant Indigo there this year. In that case, our women will be entirely excluded from the tank. And also the Saheb has said that if we do not cultivate our rice-fields with Indigo, he will make Nobin Madhab to drink the water of seven Factories (i. e. to be confined in them).