This poignant story by Premchand highlights the degrading treatment of Dalits (untouchables) under India’s caste system. A woman brings water for her sick husband from the only well in the village available to Dalits. It is contaminated and has a foul smell. She doesn’t know that boiling will purify the water, and decides that her only option is to risk a severe beating by secretly drawing water from the well of a Thakur (high-caste villager), who forbids lower-caste villagers from using it. Themes include social class, discrimination, poverty, courage, gender roles, corruption of the upper classes.