Time: Evening. Location: Madhuban fields. Massive hailstones have devastated the standing crops. Men and women of the village gather in the flattened fields in shock and despair.
Fattu: God snatched the serving platter right out of our hands!
Haldhar: A entire year of hard labor ruined in a single moment!
Fattu: It takes six years to raise a crop, and a minute to destroy it completely! After so many bad years, the crops had finally bloomed beautifully this season. Looking at these fields yesterday made one's chest swell with pride—it looked like gold laid out across the earth! But God struck, and everything is ruined.
Old Peasant: In all my long life, I have never seen hailstones as massive as these!
Haldhar: It looked as if giant rocks were cut and rolled down from the sky!
Saloni: I tell you, the landlord's moral intentions turned corrupt, and that is why this divine curse has struck our village!
Rajeshwari: Aunt, God only knows what He plans for us! I repeatedly begged Haldhar not to take a loan from the money-lender right now, but who listens to me? He ran and brought home two hundred rupees of debt! On top of that, land revenue must be paid. We can survive by doing manual labor, but how will we clear the usurer's debt?
Haldhar: Who could have foreseen this disaster, Aunt? If this hail-storm hadn't struck, the oilseed crop alone would have brought a hundred rupees!
Fattu: What is done is done; what use is grieving over what's lost?
Rajeshwari: Why should a man act so foolishly in the first place that he has to grieve later?
Saloni: Take my advice: let us all go together to Thakur Sahib and pray for rent remission! He is a generous man; I am confident he will forgive our rent. When we went for pulse-grinding, he spoke to us with such kindness and didn't make us grind a single handful of lentils! He regretted troubling us and said it was his mistake. I say he is not a man, but a god!
Fattu: A landlord's forgiveness means nothing unless the government forgives his land revenue! Otherwise the landlord has to pay the government tax from his own pocket. And we can expect no mercy from the government! Investigating officers will come, demand bribes from us, and if we pay them, they'll report damage; if not, they'll report that no loss occurred! The government only cares about filling its treasury, not keeping peasants alive. It thinks: 'If these farmers die, others will take their place; the land won't lie fallow!'
Haldhar: Without winning Swaraj (Self-Rule), our condition will never improve! If we had our own government, it would support its people in times of calamity.
Fattu: Support us? Look at how government officers promote liquor and opium sales just to collect tax revenues! Intoxicants are forbidden in holy scriptures, yet the state wants the whole country addicted to gather taxes. They spend millions on massive armies, cannons, airplanes, and luxurious hill-station retreats in summer, while we farmers can't even get two square meals of bread a day! We get crammed forty into a railway compartment built for ten, while officials ride in luxury carriages. Yet we pay for it all!
Haldhar: I have sixty rupees of land revenue to pay. Even if I sell my bullocks, it won't be enough!
Rajeshwari: We must face whatever comes. But Haldhar, if you go to the city to earn wages, I will not flee to my parents' home. I wore the bangles, I drank the cow's milk, and I shared in the feast—so when hardship comes, I will stand by your side and work wherever you go!
Saloni: Well said, daughter! Those are the true marks of a noble woman. Take me with you as well!
(Saloni begins singing a folk song of resilience.)
"Come, let us go see the splendor of Patna, where the city blossoms with life!..."
Fattu: Sing, Aunt, sing out loud! This is the true time for music—anyone can sing in times of joy, but singing in the face of ruin shows true courage!
(Saloni continues singing with spirit as the villagers unite in hope and determination to face the future together.)
Significance & Themes
- Peasant Solidarity & Resilience: The play concludes not in defeat, but in communal solidarity. Facing natural disaster, usurious debt, and feudal tyranny, the villagers find strength in collective unity and labor.
- The Call for Swaraj: Premchand explicitly connects peasant suffering to the colonial tax apparatus, advocating for self-rule (Swaraj) and agrarian justice.