The Thakur’s Well

The Thakur’s well is a short story by Premchand written in the year 1932. The story talks of caste discrimination through which the people are denied of the basic need i.e. water. The story begins with sick Jhoku nearing the lota to his mouth to drink the water and he finds it stinking. So he spoke a bit harsh to Gangi, his wife. Gangi refills the vessels with water from the well which is far away. As the couple belonged to the so called low caste they are not supposed to drink water from the two nearby well which belonged to Thakur and another to the shopkeeper.
Jhoku asks Gangi to bring the water and he’ll drink it. But Gangi was not ready as the water could worse his health. She was not aware that heating the water will make it safe. So Gangi says she will bring water from Thakur’s well to drink, but Jhoku objects saying that she’ll be back home with broken legs or hands. But she decides to go for the sake of her husband.
When she was out it was nine. Most of the place was calm and some were there talking of Thakur, about how he bribed the police officials and other things he did unlawfully. By this time Gangi was waiting near the well to fetch water. Waiting there she also thinks how they are called as low caste and just wearing the thread around would make one belonging to the upper caste. She thought, they stole, they heated and they lied in court. And suddenly she heard voice of people coming near and that was voice of two women, Gangi hears them talking of their husbands and how badly they treat them also that they doesn’t allow them to take rest.
After the women are gone, Gangi slowly moves towards the well and let her rope which is tied to the bucket slowly to fetch water without any noise. And she was praying the almighty to be her side and do the favour. And when the bucket was reaching up, she was ready to catch it and to place it on the wall of the well. But all of a sudden Thakur’s door was opened, by now the rope escaped from her hand and made a big splashing sound into the wall. Thakur starts to shout who is there and out of the fear Gangi jumped dowm and ran as fast as she could,escaped by whiskers and reached home. When she enters the room she witnesses Jhoku drinking the stinking water from the lota