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KOPAL-KUNDALA.
has understood that the girl with the complexion of moonlight was Kopal-Kundala; and I will inform him that the dark one was her husband's sister,[1] Shamasoondri.
Shamasoondri sometimes called her brother's wife "Bo,"[2] and sometimes affectionately "Bon," and sometimes "Mrino." The name of Kopal-Kundala being terribly long, the family had nicknamed her "Mrinomoi;" hence the title "Mrino." We too shall sometimes call her Mrinomoi.
Shamasoondri was repeating a bit of poetry she had learnt as a child. She said, "Will you alone remain a devotee?"
Mrinomoi replied, "Why, am I doing any penance?"
Shamasoondri, lifting Mrinomoi's waves of hair with her hands, said, "Aren't you going to do up your masses of hair?"
- ↑ The Bengalees have a different word for husband's sister (nonod) and wife's sister (bhouj). The nonod is often inimical to the bhouj, and the feeling between them corresponds to the proverbial feeling between mothers-in-law and sons-in-law in England.
- ↑ "Bo"=daughter-in-law. Kopal-Kundala was the daughter-in-law of the house.
