Janu, around 70, is an illiterate to the core and is a rag collector-cum-marriage broker.  She is a master in the arts of venom spitting against her dislikes.  The people who know her identity keep her miles away, including in her own village.

In the month of June last she brokered a marriage.  The boy from lower middle class belongs to her neighbouring village.  The girl belongs to a village at a distance of about 8 km.

The offer of dowry snatched was of 75 sovereigns of gold.  The financial status of the boys’ family does not deserve this much dowry.  The maximum can be 50 sovereigns.  The whole of village was in surprise how Janu managed to get around of it when the news of dowry leaked.  The boy’s family was over-happy.  Janu had brokered for 75 sovereigns not for the benefit of boy.  She had made the girl’s side agree for a brokerage three times more than the usual brokerage for getting the marriage through.

Three days prior to the marriage day an unknown messenger calls on the family of the boy.  She introduces herself as a well-wisher of the family and discloses the fiancee of the boy is mentally unsound and Janu has trapped them knowingly to pocket a hefty amount as brokerage from girl’s side.  The boy’s family did not believe it in the first hand  and decided to make a discreet enquiry.  The result of enquiry was more than stunning.

The boy’s family decided to nullify the betrothal and sent a message to Janu to call on them.  She did not turn up.  This forced the boy’s family to establish direct contact with the girl’s family.  The boy’s family put the blame squarely on girl’s family for concealing the mental condition of the girl.  They said they cannot move with the proposal and it has to be treated cancelled.  The girl’s side said they had disclosed to Janu and she in turn had told them that she has appraised the boy’s family the actual state of the girl.  Both the parties realized the villain was Janu.  They together decided to bring Janu to the scene immediately.  They jointly went to the house of Janu at around 9 in the night to make sure they meet her.  Janu’s family members said she is on a pilgrimage and will return only after four days.  They returned.  On their way back about100 metres, an acquaintance queried to them where they are from.  They said, they went to Janu’s residence but is not there as she is on a pilgrimage.  The acquaintance said he saw her just half an hour ago when he was passing through.  She was hiding.     

They meet or not Janu, the boy’s family firmly said they cannot go with the marriage and demanded betrothal expenses from girl’s family.  A well-wisher of both the parties intervened and settled the issue with no compensation to either party.  Both the parties suffered economically and otherwise.

Janu changed her regular route for outing.  One day she accidentally got trapped before the younger brother of the boy and his friends.  They made Janu skin off and let her off with a stern warning against indulging in unethical methods to grab brokerage at the cost of innocent families.  Janu, in turn, picked up a quarrel with her younger sister Karthu, accusing her of betraying.  She squarely put the blame on her head saying nobody else would have informed the boy’s family the real state of girl as she knows it well. Janu’s grievance is that she lost a chance of getting hefty brokerage from girl’s family.

The quarrel of Janu with her sister over lost brokerage continued well over a month.  Finally the younger one lodged a complaint with the police.  Police sternly warned Janu as nothing more than that they can do.

Two weeks after this incidence, the very constable who came to Janu’s residence for enquiry about the petition was passing through the street to make an enquiry about some other petition.  Janu noticed him passing, jumped before him and unleashed a bundle of filthy words for reporting to the SI in favour of her sister.

The whole village is tired of Janu’s filthiness and arrogance as she needs no cause to pick up quarrel with anybody.

Janu is now an un-wanted broker stuff with no takers.