The Woman Who Sold Grass Analysis

The Woman Who Sold Grass (Ghaaswali)
In The Woman Who Sold Grass, Premchand represented the life of a chamar family that included Mahaveer, his wife, Mulia and his mother who lived outside of the village. Mulia was the protagonist of the story. She was a beautiful woman. Her beauty was the most discussed talk among people how such beautiful girl can be born into a chamar family. It narrates, “Who knows how this angel had descended into that home of Chamars!” (The Woman, Premchand, vol. 3, 512) Her husband Mahaveer was a Tangawala. She cut the grass to feed his horse and remained she used to sell in the market. Mahaveer’s profession of driving tanga was the only source of earning in his family. Sometimes, he used to earn two rupees and sometimes one rupee and sometimes nothing.

Once, Chain Singh tried to molest her but Mulia warned him. He was a reputated thakur of the village. He used to stare at her with

Go place your head at the feet of a Kshatriya woman and then you’ll see the outcome of placing your head at the feet of a woman. Your head won’t be left standing on your neck.” (516)
These words of her changed Thakur Chain Singh and his treatment towards low caste and poor people of his village.

The low caste people didn’t have such freedom to choose any field to cut green grass. There were some selected areas which were given them for it. They have such fear of punishment or abuse if, by chance they cut grass from the field of an upper caste person. In the story, once Mulia went to cut grass but in her midway she found a field of green grass. That field belonged to Thakur Chain Singh. She had fear that she would be punished if she had caught red handed but her temptation won over her fear. She thought herself:
In half an hour she could gather more grass here than what a dry field would yield over the entire afternoon! Nobody keeps watch over here. If somebody shouts, I’ll leave.( quoted Italics in the text).