The story The Weed revolves around the character of Angoori.
The author Amrita Pritam introduces Angoori as the second wife of Prabhati who
is a servant of the author’s neighbour’s neighbour. After the death of
Prabhati’s first wife he visited his village for his wife’s funeral. Angoori’s
father approached him and offered him Angoori’s hand. Thus Angoori got married
to Prabhati. However, they had to wait for six years to consummate their
marriage. There are two reasons-firstly Angoori’s tender age and secondly,
Angoori’s mother’s paralytic attack. Finally when Prabhati was invited to take
away his bride away, his employer protested as they would not make arrangement
for Angoori’s food. Prabhati assured that Angoori would manage her own house.
Angoori’s new life in city started. Initially she kept
purdah from both men and women. But as time passed by the veil started to
shrink. As a young lady she was very fond of wearing jewellery and showing them
off. Amrita Pritam used to talk to her and through their conversation the
readers come to know about Angoori—her love for jewellery, her anklet with
hundreds of bells etc.
Initially , Angoori used to stay indoors, but as the weather
became hot, she could not keep herself inside her hut. She started staying
outside near the house of the author under the neem tree. One day Amrita Pritam
was reading when Angoori came and asked her what she was reading. When the
author asked her if she knew how to read and if she would like to learn how to
read, Angoori replied in the negative. When Amrita Pritam wanted to know the
reason, Angoori replied that it was a sin for women to read. Then the author
told her,
“I read. I must be sinning”. To this Angoori replied, “For
city women, it’s no sin. It is for village women”. At this both of them
laughed. Amrita Pritam did not want to disturb the peaceful conviction of
Angoori and so went away.
Angoori was a sweet young lady with a dark complexion. Her
body irradiated an intense sense of ecstasy. She had a perfect, healthy body
that any woman would love to possess. But Prabhati was just the opposite—old,
short, loose-jawed. There was no parity between them.
One day Amrita Pritam asked Angoori how marriages were fixed
in her village. Angoori replied that a girl, when five or six adores someone’s
feet. He becomes her husband. When asked how the girls knew whose feet she
should adore, Angoori replied, “Her father takes money and flowers and puts
them at his feet”. The author found it strange and asked if no girl has ever
seen her future husband. Angoori said ‘no’ in a pensive mood and said “those in
love…..they see them”. To this Amrita Pritam asked if girls had love-affairs in
village and didn’t they sin for being in love? Angoori replied, “They don’t. See,
what happens is that a man makes the girls eat the weed and then she starts
loving him.” Angoori has seen her friend falling in love who finally ran away
with the boy. The girls in love go crazy, sing song and cry too. Angoori is
convinced that love cannot come in any other way. Her mother asked her not to
take paan or sweets from anyone.
One day Amrita Pritam found Angoori sitting under a neem
tree in a melancholic mood in the afternoon. When asked, Angoori told her to
teach her how to read. The author asked her what she wanted to write and also
won’t she be sinning if she learnt writing. Angoori did not reply and again got
lost in her thought. Amrita Pritam did not want to disturb her. So she went
inside to take an afternoon nap. In the evening, when the author came out, she
found Angoori still sitting there, singing a song and crying too. Angoori
stopped singing once she saw Amrita approaching towards her. When the author
praised her singing, Angoori said that she did not know how to sing. Then she
said that she heard her friend singing the song. Amrita Pritam again made her
sing the song. It was a song sung by a love-sick person!
Then Amrita Pritam asked Angoori if she had cooked her food
she found that Angoori did not even have her tea. The night watchman, Ram Tara,
who used to fetch milk for her did not bring it. Now the author remembered that
Ram Tara had gone to his village for the past three days. He was the young,
energetic night watchman. Earlier he used to have his cup of tea with the
author after finishing his duty. But since Angoori came, he started taking his
cup of tea with Angoori and Prabhati. So the author asked Angoori if she did
not eat for the past three days and got a vague reply from Angoori. Now Amrita
Pritam asked her, “Angoori, could it be the weed?” At this tears rolled down
Angoori’s face and she cried bitterly, accepting what the author had said. The
story ends at this point with Angoori crying: “‘Curse on me!’ she started in a
voice trembling with tears, ‘I never took sweets from him…not a betel even….but
tea…’ She could not finish. Her words were drowned in a fast stream of tears.
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