the locality; and for dread of being dragged off to the plague hospital, the wretched victims dared not call in medical aid. After a visit to one of these hospitals, Jagamohan shook his head and remarked: ‘What if these people are falling ill,—that does not make them criminals.’
Jagamohan schemed and contrived till he obtained permission to use his own house as a private plague hospital. Some of us students offered to assist Satish in nursing: there was a qualified doctor among our number.
The first patient in our hospital was a Mussulman. He died. The next was Jagamohan himself. He did not survive either. He said to Satish: ‘The religion I have all along followed has given me its last reward. There is nothing to complain of.’
Satish had never taken the dust[1] of his uncle’s feet while living. After Jagamohan’s death he made that obeisance for the first and last time.
‘Fit death for an atheist!’ scoffed Harimohan when he first came across Satish after the cremation.
‘That is so, sir!’ agreed Satish, proudly.
- ↑ Touching the feet of a revered elder, and then one’s own head, is called taking the dust of the feet. It is the formal way of doing reverence.
