Rukhmabai

Rukhmabai, the mother of Prabaker Kharre, appears at the points where his family life is most visible: the wedding celebrations, his final days in hospital, and a later reunion in Bombay. Her grief after his death is made tangible in the cutting of her long hair, while its regrowth and her grandson’s likeness to Prabaker give her later appearance a careful, unsentimental image of life continuing. Through her, private mourning remains connected to family, language, and the neighborhood that receives her back.

Identity and Family

Rukhmabai is Prabaker’s mother and the wife of Kishan Mango Kharre. She is also the mother-in-law of Parvati, who is identified as Prabaker’s widow after his death, and the grandmother of their son. These family relationships shape her appearances: she is present among relatives and friends at the wedding, beside Kishan at Prabaker’s hospital bed, and later with Parvati and the child in Bombay.

The family’s connection to Sunder remains important even after they travel to the city. For the wedding, Rukhmabai and Kishan come from Sunder and plan to stay in Bombay for a month, in a hut beside Prabaker’s. Their presence joins Prabaker’s new life in the city to the village from which his parents have come. The hut is practical accommodation, but it also places the family close to him and to the community gathered around the wedding.

At Prabaker’s Wedding

Rukhmabai and Kishan sit at the front of the wedding stage with Kumar and Nandita Patak. The scene is arranged around a great painting of a lotus and colored lights shaped like glowing vines; nearby, Prabaker and Parvati sit to one side while Johnny Cigar and Sita sit on the other. Rukhmabai is not described as directing the celebration. Instead, her place among the family gives the spectacle its domestic center: the wedding is a public occasion, but the people seated before the stage make visible the relationships it gathers.

The dancers approach along a path cleared by boys with palm-leaf brooms, while young men cool them with woven-cane fans. The musicians hired for the procession move toward the stage in red and white uniforms. When the dancers enter, they sing, stamp, turn together, and eventually launch into a popular film song. Rukhmabai’s presence in this unfolding celebration gives particular weight to the contrast with her later appearance at Prabaker’s bedside. The family first gathers to witness his marriage; later it gathers to witness his dying.

Bereavement and the Cutting of Her Hair

After Prabaker’s catastrophic taxi accident, Rukhmabai sits beside his bed with Kishan, weeping in his arms. Prabaker is unconscious, his face and jaw devastated, and machines, tubes, and metal pipes sustain his failing body. Parvati and other close companions stand silently at the foot of the bed. Rukhmabai’s grief is situated among theirs, but the image of the parents holding one another makes the loss specifically familial: the son they have come to the city to be near is now beyond their care.

Prabaker remains alive for four days and nights after the doctors say there is no hope. His friends and relatives watch him suffer until his death. In the aftermath, Rukhmabai sits in the doorway of the hut she had once shared with Parvati, her back turned to the world. She loosens her hair, which falls to her thighs, and cuts it close to her head with sharp shears. The long hair falling is compared to a dying shadow. The act is presented without an explanation of a formal custom; its force comes from what can be seen. Grief changes her body and marks the household with a visible sign of loss.

Return to Bombay

When Kishan later meets Lin, he explains that he is in the city on holiday with Rukhmabai and Parvati. Rukhmabai then appears behind the group, speaking in Marathi and chiding Lin for addressing her in Hindi as though he had become too important to speak to his simple village mother. Lin bends to touch her feet, but she restrains him and joins her hands in greeting. The exchange makes affection legible through familiar language and gesture: her teasing rebuke restores their closeness, while the greeting turns the encounter into mutual respect rather than ceremony alone.

Her face seems sadder and older, and grief has put gray into her black hair. Yet the hair is growing back. The returning length reverses the earlier image of the cut hair falling like a shadow: mourning remains visible, but it has not frozen her in the moment of Prabaker’s death. Rukhmabai directs Lin’s attention to Parvati, dressed in widow’s white, and to the small son standing beside her. The child resembles Prabaker so exactly that those present share their wonder; when he smiles, Lin sees the same expansive smile his father had.

Rukhmabai tells the boy to kiss Lin, and the child does so before wrapping his arms around him. Lin holds him close. Later, Kishan invites Lin to stay with the family because his house is empty and they are all there. Rukhmabai’s reunion with Lin thus leads not to a speech about recovery but to an offered place among the family. The child named Prabaker carries his father’s name and recognizable smile, while Rukhmabai’s presence connects that inheritance to the people who survive him. Her story moves from wedding witness, to bereaved mother, to grandmother welcoming an old friend back into the household.