Short fiction by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay: Who will conduct the prayers after Aparna leaves?

Two potter families lived on the riverbank of a village. They gathered clay from the river, put it in moulds and made dolls and sold them in the market. They had done this forever and this is how they had clothes on their backs and food in their bellies. The women finished their different tasks, fetched water, cooked and fed their husbands and sons, and then dug out the baked clay figures from the ash-heap, dusted them with the ends of their sarees and handed them to the men to paint.

Shaktinath had made a place for himself with these potters, who were of the Kumbhokar caste. This sickly Brahmin boy gave up his friends, games and studies and attached himself to these clay dolls. He washed the bamboo chisels, cleared the clay out of the moulds meticulously, and in great distress, watched the figures being painted carelessly. The eyebrows, eyes and lips of the dolls were drawn with ink. Some would have thick eyebrows, some merely half a brow and there would be ink stains below the mouths of others.

“Sarkar dada, why are you drawing so haphazardly?” asked Shaktinath.

“Bamunthakur, if I draw carefully, I’ll need to charge more,” replied Sarkar dada,...

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