The Village in the Jungle

by Leonard Woolf

'Well, Babun,' said Fernando, 'will the chena crop be good, do you think?'

'Who can say, aiya, who can say? Only a fool measures his grain before it is on the threshing-floor.'

'Then all these villagers do that, for they are all fools. Aiyo! what cattle! what trouble they give a man!'

'We are poor men, aiya, and ignorant.'

'I'm not thinking of you, Babun, but of the others. There is only one man in the village; all say that, and I've seen it myself. But the others! They will ruin me. How much do they owe me! Only a very good crop will pay it, but they don't care. They don't fence the chena or watch it; they sit and sleep in the compound, and the deer and pig go off with my rupees in their bellies. Isn't that true?'

'It's true, aiya.'

'And what can I do, a town man, with all these chenas? I ought to have a gambaraya.'[41]

'Yes, you want a gambaraya.'

'So I thought, and I thought too, "This Babun is the only man in the village, why shouldn't he be my gambaraya?" Well, what do you say? You could look after the other chenas, and also cultivate your own?'

Babun was silent with astonishment; it was a piece of good fortune which he could never have dreamed of.