Lust - A Short Story

 Lust

    There was a village called Nishitpur. As the name so was its condition. Morning did not come there. It seemed that the darkness of night reigned there. The villagers were illiterate and wage was their only earning. They worked in the lands of others and at the end of the day whatever they earned, they met their family expenditure with that. Everyday they did not get work, but had to spend money for living everyday because food was a daily necessity.

   None of the villagers, except Sumit Sahu, had any arable land. They worked in other's land. The figures of the villagers expressed their poverty. They were just living. Life was a burden to them. Hari, Nath, Deben, Mosen, Timu, Bila etc. were few villagers. They never did see the ray of luck. Fortune turned its back to them. Old traditions had a strong grip on them - marrying their children after 14 years, a family must have a boy child, eating programme in every function, especially marriage etc. Those traditions along with their illiteracy made their lives pathetic. 

     A blister on their painful life was the money lender Sumit Sahu. He took advantage of the villagers' poverty and illiteracy. When any villager would borrow money from him, his debt would never be cleared, how much money he would repay. Instead debt would increase and the final result was the confiscation of land. That was why no villager had any land. After grabbing their land, the money lender used another tactics. When any villager would fail to repay, he had to send his wife to the money lender for one night. Reluctantly the villagers had to accept that, because the owed money to him and had no way to repay though already repaid. Their illiteracy was their destroyer.

    The lust of the money lender went another step. He declared that the new bride of the debtor's family would first sleep with him. It was a bolt from the blue for the villagers, but it was implemented.

    Then came natural justice. When a literate family married their daughter in the village, they came to know of the Lust of the money lender and his monitory exploitation. They filed a complaint with the police station and the money lender was arrested. On enquiry all his immoral and inhuman practices were exposed. He was sent to jail. The villagers got back their lands and the sexual exploitation came to an end for ever.

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