Benimadhava Singh was a landowner, and the revenue officer in the village of Gauripur. His grandfather, once upon a time, was a man of great wealth. The village’s pucca water reservoir and the temple, which now cried out for repairs, were his proud memorials. People say that once an elephant stood at the door where now there is only an old buffalo, which is no more than a skeleton of its old self but which appears to produce a large quantity of milk, judged by the fact that someone or the other keeps hovering round her with a pot. Benimadhava had gifted away more than half of his wealth to the lawyers. His present annual income was no more than a thousand rupees. He had two sons. The elder one, Shrikanth Singh, had obtained his B.A. degree after great and long hard work, and was employed in an office. The younger son, Lalbihari Singh, was a broad-chested, strongly-built handsome youth. He would drink up two seers of milk every morning just after waking up. Shrikanth was an exact contrast. He had sacrificed these eye-pleasing qualities to just two words: B.A. These two words had debilitated his body and robbed his face of all its brightness. That is why he loved books on medicine. He had great faith in the Ayurvedic medicines. From morning till evening one could hear the soft grind of the pestle moving to and fro in the mortar. He was in regular postal contact with vaids in Lahore and Calcutta.
Shrikanth, in spite of being a holder of this English degree, had no special love for English manners and customs; on the other hand he was their strong critic and held them in contempt. Because of this the villagers held him in great respect. During the Dussehra festival he participated in the Ram Lila, taking up the role of some character or the other. He was the progenitor of Ram Lila in the village. The primary object of his religious activities was the promotion of ancient Hindu culture. He was the sole admirer of the joint family system. The lack of interest in joint family seen among women today was for him harmful for the community and the country. That is why the young ladies of the village were his strong critics. Some among them did not hesitate to regard him as their enemy. Even his own wife opposed his views on the subject. Not because she disliked her father and mother in-law, or her husband’s brother, but because she believed that if it was not possible to carry on even after many compromises, it was better to part and set up one’s own kitchen than to waste one’s life in needless day-to-day bickerings.
Anandi was a girl from an aristocratic family. Her father was the talukedar of a small state. A huge mansion, an elephant, three dogs, hunter eagles, chandeliers, honorary magistracy and debts – all the objects of desire for a respectable talukedar were present here. His name was Bhoop Singh. He was a very generous and talented man, but unfortunately he had no son. He fathered seven daughters and all of them remained alive. In the first flush of enthusiasm he married off three of his daughters spending generously. But when he realized he had contracted a debt of about fifteen-to-twenty thousand rupees, he withdrew his hand. Anandi was his fourth daughter. She was the most beautiful and talented of his daughters. That is why Thakur sahib loved her greatly. All parents have a tendency to love their beautiful off-spring. Thakur sahib faced a great dilemma: Where to find a suitable match for Anandi? He did not want to increase the burden of his debt, at the same time he did not wish to give his daughter the feeling that she had been unfortunate. One day Shrikanth came to him to ask for some donations; it was perhaps for the propagation of Hindi. Bhoop Singh was impressed by his conduct, and married off Anandi to Shrikanth with great pomp and show.
When Anandi came to her new home she found that things were very different here. There was no trace all the trappings of wealth she had been used to since her childhood. What to talk of an elephant or a horse, there was nothing like even a well-adorned bullock cart. She had brought her silken slippers but there was no garden here. There were no windows, no pucca floors, or no pictures on the walls. Here there was just an ordinary rural household. However, Anandi adapted herself to this new environment with such ease as if she had never been used to the luxuries of life.