The Palace Tiger

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Putli’s mother, her hands on her hips, straightened painfully, glad after two hours to break the rhythmic coordination of arm and shoulder, glad to stand back and count the mounting bundles of tall cut grass that had fallen to the steady swish of her sickle. The weight of the coming baby was beginning to unbalance her and slow her down. There was no doubt of that, but an early start while the oat grass was still wet had paid off and she was pleased. She called out a practised musical cry answered by her daughter working a few yards behind her on the steep slope that led up to the forest beyond the village. Glad to share this pause, mother and daughter smiled with wordless tenderness.

Her mother looked with satisfaction at the eight-year-old girl. Yesterday had been the most important day of her daughter’s life. She had been fêted and spoiled by the whole village and fed to bursting with puris and rich milk and sweetmeats. It had been her wedding day. Putli’s mother had been proud to see the pretty girl, her eldest child, dressed for the first time in the costume of a married woman. No longer the infant in simple cotton dress, she was now wearing the tight blue bodice, the short skirt and the chaddar of the women of her tribe.

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