A watercolor by Rao Bahadur M. V. Dhurandhar, 1923. Public domain.

Jhaverchand Meghani (1896–1947) wrote almost a hundred books—novels, biographies, and collections of stories, poems, songs, and plays. His life’s mission was to preserve the culturally distinct heritage of Saurashtra—a large peninsula jutting into the Arabian Sea from India’s western state, Gujarat, known as Mahatma Gandhi’s birthplace and the last natural habitat for Asiatic lions. In 1922, Meghani embarked on a multiyear journey across Saurashtra to document its oral folklore before it was lost to the forces of colonialism, industrialization, urbanization, and preindependence nationalism. The lack of proper roads or railways meant traveling over treacherous terrain for days on horseback, camel, or bullock cart to meet villagers, rebels, and outlaws, and navigating treacherous terrain. This story, “The Glowing Bride” (original title: “Parnetar”), is from the second volume of a five-volume collection, The Essence of Saurashtra, published between 1923 and 1927. It takes place in Ranavav, the setting of legends from the era of the Ramayana, an ancient Indian epic. In a preface to The Essence of Saurashtra, Meghani insists that his historical figures are depicted simply and truthfully, without embellishment. Like the best folklorists, he recognizes that folktale is “autobiographical ethnography”—how a culture describes itself rather than how outsiders describe it. My translation aims to preserve cultural specificities—the meals, the clothing, the textures of daily life, the Hindu cosmological worldview of the final act—while offering readers a universally resonant story about love, innocence, and the accidents that can shape our lives.

—Jenny Bhatt, translator

On the western border of Sorath, there is a village called Ranavav. It is named after a famous local well. Once upon a time, farmsteads flourished in that region like perennial blossoms. As newborns clamber over their mother to suckle at her life-giving breasts, so the families of an agrarian Kanbi community ascended the hills and nestled into Mother Earth’s lap to grow grain and earn their livelihoods. This is a story about that time.

Kheto Patel was one of the Kanbi landowners in that region. He had a daughter whose luminous beauty earned her the name Ajwaali, meaning “glowing.” But they called her, simply, Anju. Whenever Anju smiled gently, it was as if, for a moment, rays of light radiated everywhere. Starting early in the morning, Anju would cook ten to twelve hearty flatbreads for her father’s meals. She would muck out the stalls that housed their four bulls and clean the courtyard, turning it into a fresh, garden-like sanctuary. Then she would milk their two buffaloes, grasping their udders as thick as a man’s biceps and pulling them so skillfully with her fists that creamy streams of milk would gush forth. Swiftly churning that freshly drawn buffalo milk, she would make as much buttermilk as possible.

Many visitors came to offer Kheto marriage proposals for his beautiful, accomplished Anju. Kheto would always reply, “My daughter is still too young.”

***

One day, a fellow Kanbi youth came to Kheto Patel’s house. He had scarcely any clothing to cover his body. His face was sallow and dull. But there was a look in his eyes that stirred compassion. Kheto Patel hired the youth as a field laborer for the mutually agreed compensation of three meals a day, two sets of clothes, one pair of shoes, and, when the crop was ripe, as many grain stalks as the young man could reap by himself. The new hire, Mepo, got to work right away.

Anju herself would go to the fields to give Mepo his daily lunch. Anju looked forward to taking him his meal so eagerly that she would finish all her chores well before noon. A huge dollop of butter on two hearty flatbreads, a couple of juicy coleus stems that she would set aside to pickle in lime brine specially for him, and a cool earthen pot filled with thickly flowing buttermilk—when Anju gathered these items and went to the fields, her face looked more exquisite than at any other time of day.

Sitting beside Mepo, Anju would feed him, coercing him with mock threats. “If you don’t eat, then your mother will die.”

“I don’t have a mother.”

“Your father will die.”

“I don’t have a father either.”

“Your wife will die.”

“Her mother is probably still raising that girl—my future wife—somewhere out there.”

“Then whoever you care for most will die.”

On hearing that last threat, the boy would become ravenous again. Day by day, his happiness grew unbounded. Once the boy asked, “Why do you show me so much kindness?”

“Because you’re an orphan; you have no parents.”

Another time, on hearing the repetitive kinchuk-kinchuk sound of the water wheel that helped irrigate the field, Anju asked, “Mepo, what might the wheel and the axle be saying to each other?”

Mepo said, “The wheel is recalling his previous life. He’s saying to the axle, ‘Lady Axle! In that former life, you were a Patel landlord’s daughter, and I was a poor laborer …’ ”

“What a brave hero! Finally you blurt out what’s on your mind? You’ve become rather bold for a meek little monkey, haven’t you? Just wait till I tell my father!”

Such were the innocent flirting games they played.

***

In this delightful manner, the summer passed. Mepo had worked hard to plow the field and make it as pliable as a soft mattress. Forget about weeds; he did not leave even a single stray blade of grass standing. His hands were covered with sores from constantly digging out the dry, dead stalks. Anju would come and blow her cool, soft breath on those sores. She would tenderly pluck the thorns from his feet.

When the monsoon rains poured down, it was as if Mepo was being showered with good fortune. The sorghum and millet stalks grew so large that he could not hold one in a single fist. In the afternoons, when Mepo stared, unblinking, at the tall crop, Anju would ask, “What are you looking at?”

“I’m looking to see whether this will be enough grain for a woman to agree to marry me this year.”

“But what if you didn’t need any of this grain to get a wife?”

“Then I would definitely be called a destitute orphan who has nothing to offer his bride!”

***

The date for the big harvest day was set. During each of the days leading up to it, Mepo cut a bale of green grass to give to a blacksmith in the village. They had become good friends, and the craftsman had made him a small sickle. After it was forged, the metal sickle was cleaned and whetted with water from the Ranavav well. And how did it turn out? It had such a well-honed sharp edge that, if it got close enough, it would likely chomp off entire arms or legs and send them flying through the air.

On the morning of the much-anticipated harvest day, Mepo took his brand-new sickle and began tackling the heads of grain. By noon, he had already cleared three-quarters of the field.

Kheto Patel came to take a look and left goggle-eyed. Back home, Patel said to his wife,, “Patlaani, we are ruined! By the time night falls, that boy will have brought down every ear of grain in our lot. Per the agreement, all that he reaps will belong to him. What will we eat for the rest of the year?”

Anju heard her father’s lament. She began adorning herself with her finest weaponry: a voluminous skirt in passionate purple, with mirrorwork embroidery for good luck, and a flowing veil of bridal crimson to cover her head. She combed her hair, looped her long braids over her forehead, and filled the parting with bright red sindoor like a new bride.

Gathering the provisions for Mepo’s meal, Anju set off earlier than usual on this special day. For lunch, there was a decadent new treat: ghee-drenched laapsi cooked with roasted wheat flour, sweet jaggery, creamy milk, chopped nuts, and choice bits of dried fruit.

Mepo sat down to eat. But his heart was not able to calm itself today. Anju chattered about various topics to keep a lively conversation going, yet he showed no interest. Stuffing his mouth hurriedly with a few morsels, he rinsed his hands clean to signal he was done eating. Untying the fragrant cardamom she had secured to one end of her veil for an after-meal digestive, Anju offered it to him. He did not care even for that rare and cherished cardamom today. Mepo got up.

“Now sit down, come on! You won’t remain wifeless if you miss cutting a couple of ears of grain.”

Mepo did not yield to her. He did not even smile at her quip.

“Today, your grainheads are dearer to you than Anju, right?”

Mepo’s heart did not melt.

“Look, I’ll have you wed to your future wife for free. Sit with me for a bit. Here, look at me at least!”

Mepo turned in the opposite direction and walked toward the ripened grain stalks.

“Wait. Why won’t you listen?” So saying, Anju ran to him.

The handle of the sickle was tucked into the waistband of Mepo’s tunic, and its curved blade hung loosely around his neck—as was the customary practice for field laborers when they took a break from cutting grain. In her earnest, innocent passion, Anju grabbed hold of that sickle handle and tugged Mepo toward her, demanding, “You won’t hold still, will you?”

Mepo stood still. He stood still forever. With just the slightest tug, that Ranavav-whetted sickle sank deep into his neck. Right before Anju had raised her arm to grab that handle, Mepo had smiled at her ever so slightly. That amusement, too, remained frozen on his face.

Mepo had wanted to marry. Mepo was married. In those same fine clothes from harvest day—that voluminous skirt in passionate purple with mirrorwork embroidery for good luck and that flowing veil of bridal crimson—Anju lay on Mepo’s funeral pyre beside his corpse. The god of fire, Agni, blessed them with a marital bed of glowing, rose-red embers.

From that time on, this verse has been sung in the loving young couple’s memory: 

A sickle so strong and keen,
It reaps humans, racks them high.
A virgin in Ranavav, serene,
Mounts a burning bed to die.

Also, from that time on, the famous Ranavav well has remained sealed and buried.

Today, there is a large memorial on the spot where the well once was. Except for the verses, no visible sign or sight of the well itself remains.

Author’s Note: Fictional names have been given to the characters of this story because the real names could not be confirmed.