That is why, when Badè Khan came, the sahib said to himself, ‘This will be a fine thing — a policeman on the spot is always useful.’ And so it is, for Badè Khan has just to sneeze or cough and everybody will say, ‘I lick your feet!’ No, not exactly. Those Brahmin clerks Gangadhar and Vasudev go straight in front of him and do not care for the beard of Badè Khan. They are city boys, you see. And when they are there even Rachanna and Sampanna and other Pariahs say, ‘Let Badè Khan say what he likes, our learned ones are here. ’ And it is they indeed, Gangadhar and Vasudev, that took the Pariahs down to Kanthapura for the bhajans, and it is they that asked our learned Moorthy to come up. They said the Pariahs must learn to read and to write, and when they can do this they can speak straight to the sahib and ask for this and that, money and material and many holidays. Why should not Pariah Rachanna and Sampanna learn to read and to write? They shall. And Badè Khan can wave his beard and twist his moustache. What is a policeman before a Gandhi’s man? Tell me, does a boar stand before a lion or a jackal before an elephant?
6
Moorthy is coming up tonight. In Rachanna’s house and Madanna’s house, in Sampanna’s and Vaidyanna’s, the vessels are already washed and the embers put out, and they all gather together by Vasudev’s tin shed in the Brahmin lines to meet Moorthy. Now and again there is a rustle of leaves and it is one-eyed Nanjayya or Chennayya’s daughter, Madi, who is coming up from the lines, and once they are in the courtyard, they seat themselves on the earth and begin to whisper to their neighbours. Inside the house of Vasudev is seen a faint oil-light, and his widowed mother is seen to serve him his evening meal. The brass vessels shimmer and shake, and then there is only the long, moving shadow on the wall. There, in the streaming starlight, Kanthapura floats like a night procession of the gods over still waters, and up the Bebbur mound is seen a wavering lantern light. That’s surely he. Yes, he’s coming. He will be here soon.
‘Learned one, he is coming,’ cries out Rachanna, looking towards Vasudev’s shed. ‘Can’t you shut your mouth, you Pariah!’ shouts back Vasudev’s mother. ‘You always want to pollute the food of Brahmins with your evil tongues.’—Rachanna does not care. She’s an old sour-milk, she is! Vasudevappa does not speak like that, does he? Then there is a rustle of leaves again and the heavy tread of Badè Khan’s boots is heard. He skirts Vasudev’s courtyard, and with his lathi in his hand and his mongrel before him, he passes on along the main path down the hill towards the gate. Between the creak of bamboos is heard the creak of the gate, and after that there is nothing but the creak of bamboos again and the whispered chatter of men.
The moving light is seen by the tortoise rock and it dips now into the watery rice fields and now into the wake river, and sometimes it rises sheer across the plateau into the treetops of the Skeffington Coffee Estate. Then it swings back again, and dies quickly into the Bebbur jungle growth.
Moorthy will soon be here. But Moorthy will not come tonight. Vasudev has finished his meal, and has washed his hands, and as he comes out Gangadhar is there with his son and his brother-in-law, and they all look towards the valley, where there is nothing but a well-like silence and the scattered whiffs of fireflies. From behind the Bebbur jungle comes the mournful cry of jackals, and from somewhere beyond the Puppur mountains comes the grunt of a cheetah or tiger, and the carts are already seen to pull up the Mena Ghats. Everybody goes from this side to that, and Rachanna swears he has seen the light and Madanna says he has seen it, too, and they all rise up, and Rachanna says he will go and look near the gate, and Madanna says he will go, too, and young Venku and Ranga both say, ‘I’m coming with you, Uncle,’ and when they are all at the gate they hear a grunt and a growl, and a soft whispering answer, and Rachanna cries out, ‘Who’s there?’—’Why, your wife’s lover, you son of my woman,’ spits back Badè Khan— and when they are near, they see the lantern light creeping up the banyan roots, and a white shadow beneath them, and Rachanna says that must be he.
‘Learned master Moorthy?’
‘Yes, Rachanna.’
‘Stitch up your mouth. Do you hear?’
‘I am a free man, police sahib. I can speak,’ says Moorthy.
‘Free man you may be in your palace. But this is the Skeffington Coffee Estate. And these are Skeffington Coffee Estate coolies. You’d better take care of your legs. I’ve orders.’
‘Coolies are men, police sahib. And according to the laws of your own Government and that of Mr Skeffington no man can own another. I have every right to go in. They have every right to speak to me.’
‘You will not cross this gate.’
‘I shall!’
Meanwhile Vasudev has arrived, and behind him Gangadhar and the men and the women, and from behind the bamboo cluster the maistri too, and the butlers from the bungalow, and then there is such a battle of oaths: ‘son of concubine’. ‘son of a widow’. ‘I’ll sleep with your wife’. ‘you donkey’s husband’. ‘you ass’. ‘you pig’. ‘you devil’. and such a shower of spittle and shoes, and ‘Brother, stop there’. ‘No, not till I’ve poured my shoe-water through his throat’. ‘No, no, calm yourself. ‘Oh, you bearded monkey’. ‘Oh, you Pariah-log,’ and as Moorthy forces himself up, Badè Khan swings round and — bang! — his lathi has hit Moorthy and his hands are on Moorthy’s tuft, and Rachanna and Madanna cry out, ‘At him!’ and they all fall on Badè Khan and tearing away the lathi, bang it on his head. And the maistri comes to pull them off and whips them, and the women fall on the maistri and tear his hair, while Moorthy cries out, ‘No beatings, sisters. No beatings, in the name of the Mahatma.’ But the women are fierce and they will tear the beard from Badè Khan’s face. Gangadhar and Vasudev go up to the pillars of the gate and cry, ‘Calm! Calm!’ Badè Khan, spitting and kicking, says he will have every one of them arrested, and as the maistri whips the coolies up the Estate path, Vasudev leads Moorthy away down to Kanthapura and spends the night there.
The next morning the maistri is there at Rachanna’s door: ‘You will clear out of here, instantly!’ and Rachanna’s old wife falls at the feet of the maistri and begs him to let them stay on, and she falls again at his feet and wriggles before him, but Rachanna drags her away and tells her to pack the baskets and bundles, and turns to the mastri and says, ‘You owe me seventy-six rupees in cash,’ and the maistri laughs and answers, ‘You have the tongue to ask that too?’ and Rachanna says he will not leave his hut till he’s paid, and at this the maistri goes away and comes back with Badè Khan and the butlers, and with the whip on his back and kicks on the buttocks, they drive him and his wife and his two orphaned grandchildren to the gate and throw their clay pots after them. Neither Puttamma nor Papamma nor old Siddayya, who were working by the bamboo cluster, turn towards Rachanna. ‘Thoo! Thoo! Thoo!’ spits Rachanna, looking towards them, and with his grumbling wife behind him and the little ones in his arms, he goes down the path over the Devil’s ravine bridge and by the Parvati-well and beneath the Buxom pipal tree, and turning by the Kenchamma grove, they all fall flat in prostration before the goddess and say, ‘Goddess Kenchamma, oh, do not leave us to eat dust!’ Then they rise up and tramp up the Ghat road to Kanthapura. They go to Moorthy and Moorthy takes them to Patel Rangè Gowda, and Rangè Gowda says, ‘We’ll show our mountain tricks to the bearded goat, and he goes to Beadle Timmayya and says, ‘Give him shelter and water and fire, Timmayya!’ and Timmayya gives him a place in the backyard, and as Rachanna builds his hut, the woman goes with the other women to pound rice, and that is how Rachanna came to live with us. And as everybody saw, from that time Moorthy grew more sorrowful and calm, and it was then, too, that he began his ‘Don’t-touch-the-Government’ campaign.