THE WEED

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.