The writer
Sarat Chandra inaugurates a huge public library at Medinipur. Following the
inauguration, people engage themselves into literature related conversation.
One of the gentlemen asks the author why he treats truthfulness and femininity
as two different aspects. To make the point understand clearly, the writer
narrates a story about a woman whom he knows since childhood.
A
twelve-year-old girl, who was married to an elderly man, becomes a widow
prematurely. She returns to her parents’ house, in a village. By the time she
is thirty two years old, she is left alone in the world, her parents no more
alive. The author calls her Didi,
sister. In fact the whole village calls her sister because she works at others
home in all types of events or even in the times of contingency. Soon, in the
village she becomes famous for her helping nature and people reckon her as a
hardworking figure with unblemished character.
She lives in a
hut which is covered from the mud walls from all sides, and beside one wall
stands a huge tree of Jamun. The
author, being a child, plans to play a prank on her. The child climbs on the
tree and hides in the dense branches well before the evening. When the darkness
surrounds the village, things go silent, there aren’t any cooking fires in the
sky, people proceed for sleep, he shouts Didi…Didi…in
a hoarse voice with an intention of scaring her. Soon after hearing the voice a
fat man quickly gets up from the cot, lying in the courtyard, and hides beneath
it.
Thus, the
author clarifies that it is not necessary that a woman high on truthfulness is
refraining from sexual desires. Both aspects are different and women are rarely
bereft of femininity. In his view both are different because each quality
passes through a different circumstance to prove its mettle.
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