midnight
He is up before dawn every day , and with a basket of __ pan __ leaves , twists of tobacco , coloured cotton yarn , little combs , looking-glasses , and other trinkets beloved of the village women , he wades through the knee - deep water of the marsh and goes over to the Namasudra quarters . There he barters his goods for rice , which fetches him a little more than their price in money . If he can get back soon enough he goes out again , after a hurried meal , to the sweetmeat seller 's , where he assists in beating sugar for wafers . As soon as he comes home he sits at his shell-bangle making , plodding on often till midnight . All this cruel toil does not earn , for himself and his family , a bare two meals a day during much more than half the year . His method of eating is to begin with a good filling draught of water , and his staple food is the cheapest kind of seedy banana . And yet the family has to go with only one meal a day for the rest of the year .