Becharam.— A fine counsellor you have got Baburam! If you listen to all such a counsellor has to advise, you are bound to get to heaven, body and all. And what a son, too, you have! And so he is actually about to be married? What do you think about it all, Beni Babu!
Beni.— I think that the man who will first thoroughly educate his son, and who will take special pains that he shall grow up thoroughly moral, will be best able to be of assistance to his son when the time comes that he should marry. Many evils are likely to arise if a boy is married at an unreasonable age.
On hearing all this, Baburam Babu rose in much irritation and hurriedly retreated into the inner apartments of the house, where his wife was engaged in discussing the match with some of the women of the village. Going up to her, he informed her of all that had been said outside, and as he stood there in some perplexity, inquired: “Cannot we put off Matilall’s marriage for a few days?” His wife replied: “What is this that you are saying? Plague take our enemies! By divine favour Matilall is now sixteen: would it look well not to marry him now? If you upset the arrangements now, the proper season for marriage will slip away. You surely do not know what you are doing: is the caste of a good man to be destroyed in this way? Go at once, and take the bridegroom off with you.”
At this advice from his wife, all the master’s indecision disappeared. He at once went outside and gave the order for the lamps to be lit: the musical instruments all struck up at the same time, and the English bands began to play. Baburam lifted the bridegroom into his palanquin, and taking Thakchacha by the hand, walked by the side, with heavy gait, accompanied by his kinsmen and near friends. From the roof of the house the boy’s mother gazed down upon her son’s face, and the women of the household called out, “Ah, mother of Mati! Ah, how beautiful is your child!” The friends of the bridegroom were all with him: they amused themselves by taking torches to the rear of the crowd and setting people alight, and by letting off squibs and fireworks near the houses and in the thick of the crowd. None of the poor people ventured to remonstrate, though they were sadly annoyed.
The bridegroom soon reached Manirampur, and got down from the palanquin. Both sides of the road were crowded with people gazing at the bridegroom. The women chattered away to each other about him. “The boy has a certain amount of beauty,” said one, “but if his nose were a bit straighter, he would look better.” Another remarked, “His complexion, fair as it is, would look better even fairer.”
The marriage was to take place at a late hour, but it had not struck ten when Madhav Babu, taking a durwan with a lantern, came out to meet the bridegroom and his guests. After he had joined the marriage procession in the street, nearly half an hour was wasted in the exchange of compliments, each man wishing to give precedence to the other. While one said: “Pray sir! precede me!” the other politely declined: “Nay sir! do you please go first.” At last, Beni Babu of Bally went forward and said: “Please one of you gentlemen go on ahead. I cannot stand here in the street and catch cold.” An amicable arrangement being at last come to, the whole company arrived at the house of the bride’s father and entered.
The bridegroom took his seat in the assembly. Numbers of roughs were standing about, ripe for mischief. The distribution of money to the village, and other subjects, then came up for discussion. Thakchacha was doing his best, but apparently without avail, to effect some arrangement for his own profit. A rough blustering sort of fellow came up to him and said: “Who is this low Mahomedan? Get out of this! what has a Mahomedan to do with Hindu concerns?” Thakchacha was furious, and shaking his head fiercely, his eyes inflamed with passion, abused the man roundly.
This was the very opportunity Matilall’s young friends, Haladhar, Gadadhar, and the other young Babus, had been longing for. They saw from the clouds that were gathering that a storm was imminent. One set to work to tear the carpet into pieces, another to extinguish the lamps: some set the chandeliers clashing and jingling, while others threw missiles among the assembled company[23]. Some of the people of the bride’s father, seeing the confusion they were creating, began to abuse them and strike them with their fists, and Matilall seeing the quarrel in progress; thought to himself: “I fancy I am not destined to get married. I may have to return home after all, with the thread only on my wrist[24].”