The bride hath paced into the halt,
Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.

S.T. Coleridge - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Bisweswar Majumdar of Paikpara had one of the largest landed properties in Burdwan district of undivided Bengal. In those days when natural boundaries demarcated land holdings, it was bound by the Tamla river at one end, a railway track at the other and marshy lands and ponds on either side. He became the sole owner of the property while in his twenties, after the death of his father. His mother had died when he was a child and he was brought up by his paternal aunt who was the other sole occupant of their vast mansion.

His aunt, anxious that there should be an heir to the inheritance, scouted for a bride for her nephew. Her choice fell on Padmarani, who was ten years old, the correct age for girls to marry in the olden days. She was playful, good at music and could read and write in her native language. In build she was petite, in appearance pleasant and in complexion, fair. Their horoscopes matched very well.

Bisweswar's father had made a tradition of organising cultural functions, comprising of music and dance programmes of eminent devadasis and nautch girls of that era, during the Durga Puja festival, in front of their outhouse. Later on, this custom degenerated in his accommodating the devadasi Chameli, who was almost his son's age, permanently in the outhouse where he used to watch her sing and dance in the night amidst bouts of drinking. His wife had died and he was free to do as he liked.

Chameli was of generous proportions, yet slender at the waist, of nimble feet and studied gait. Her kohl-lined eyes would glance only sideways and never straight. Though she used to pride herself to be a Raj-nartaki, a court dancer, in reality she was none but a whore, a prostitute, a harlot. The brain behind her harlotry was her 'manager,' Shibkinkar. In appearance, he looked like a crossbreed between a vulture and a bed-bug and probably his actions were as hideous.

After his father's death, Bisweswar kept up the tradition, for, Shibkinkar and Chameli had enticed him into it and the old aunt did not have much say in the matter.

The marriage of Padmarani and Bisweswar was duly solemnised and the child bride was not old enough to understand the implications of having another woman in the outhouse. For her it was just another routine.

The awakening took place suddenly when she grew up. There were perceptible changes in her body which caused uneasiness and stretching accompanied by some strange longing, especially on moon-lit nights; she herself could not decipher exactly what she wanted. Bisweswar observed all this and started taking time off from Chameli and devoted it to his wife, now no longer a child.

Gradually, Padmarani wanted her husband all for herself. On the other hand, the duo of Chameli-Shibkinkar tried all the tricks in their trade to catch and hold his attention. The struggle for supremacy had begun.

The sympathy of the simple villagers of Paikpara lay with Padmarani. They were very much pleased with her kindness and generosity and would do anything for her.

Padmarani, one day, took some important villagers into confidence and hatched a plan to evict Chameli and Shibkinkar permanently from the outhouse. They decided that when her husband would be watching Chameli sing and dance they would create panic by spreading a rumour that a herd of wild elephants, after levelling their sugarcane fields, was heading towards the outhouse. In the ensuing confusion, Chameli would be frisked away behind the outhouse, her head would be shaved, face tattooed and toes crushed so that she could never dance again.

That evening, everything went according to plan. Shibkinkar, the cunning man, was the first to flee. Chameli was given the treatment she deserved and she left the village permanently. Thus Padmarani had her husband all to herself.

The child bride had indeed grown into a woman.