There they took only Pariah Rachanna and Lingayya and Potter Siddayya, and when we all thought, ‘Now we are free — we can go,’ they drove us into trucks, one truck, two trucks, three trucks, men in one and young women in another and old women in another again, and they took each in a different direction, and when the night fell, they left us on the Beda Ghats and others on the Karwar road and yet others again on the Blue Mountain road, and when we were on the highway we all began to tremble and we said, ‘Oh, we are in the middle of the jungle!’ and our knees shook and our hair stood on end, and the whole forest seemed to rise up a wall of a thousand voices, and the road hissed this way and that, and tongued over a rill, and shot up the mountains to the seven-hooded skies and all the serpent eyes of the sky looked down bright and bitter upon us — and at last it was Rangamma who said, ‘Don’t be afraid, sisters. Tell me, how many are you?’ And we huddled together in the middle of the road and said, ‘We are twenty-two in all,’ and Rangamma said, ‘Form a line,’ and we formed a line, and she said, ‘Now march, singing,’ and we said, ‘Let us sing loud so that the panthers and the porcupines may be frightened away,’ and we sang, ‘Wheresoever we look, you are there, my Lord!’
And we sing it louder and louder and we march fast and fearful, until we are wet with perspiration and we forget the wounds on the thigh or the bruises on the face or the ache in the bones. And at last, when we had gone God knows how long, there on the top of the hill we see the dangling light of a cart, and the dust seems dust and the hand seems a hand and the trees, oh, nothing but trees, and after all we are not afraid, are we? — and the nearer comes the cart the louder we sing, and when it is in front of us Rangamma cries out, ‘From what town, brother?’—’Why, from Rachapura,’ says he, and then he gets down, and the bulls ring their bells and yawn. And Rangamma tells him we are women and Satyagrahis and we are hungry, and he says he had heard about us in Kanthapura and that the police are still there, and Nose-scratching Nanjamma can bear no more and she says, ‘We are hungry, Rangamma — we have not had a meal since morning’; and Rangamma says to the cartman, ‘Perhaps you’ve something to eat?’ and he says, ‘Why, I have copra,’ and Nanjamma says, ‘Anything. Anything,’ and he lets down the yoke and he opens a sack and he gives us copra, one copra each, and Rangamma says, ‘Are there no more carts coming behind you?’ and he says, ‘Yes, there are,’—’And can you not take us to Kanthapura? We shall pay you two rupees a cart,’ and he says, ‘We shall see when the other carts come.’ And we seat ourselves in the middle of the road, and now we can hear the jackals wail and the twitching trill of the jungle insects, and now and again the bulls shake their heads and the clanging of bells goes tearing down the mountain path and trailing up to the sturdy heights, and then the creak of the carts is heard, and cart after cart comes down the hill and the cartmen say, ‘All right, we’ll take you to Kanthapura,’ and we say, ‘How much?’ and they say, ‘Ask the waters of the Himavathy!’ and we say, ‘No, no!’ and one of them says, ‘He, sisters, I’ve been to the city, to the big city, to Bombay, and I have been a weaver there, and I have seen the Red-man and the man that fights the Red-man, the Mahatma, and I say, “If we touch but the dirt of a coin, we’ll be born in a million hells.” What do you say to that, brothers?’ And the cartmen say, ‘As you like, Timmayya,’ but he spits on them and calls them sluts and says, ‘The Mahatma is born once and not twice, and if ye be such hang-lip hagglers, I’ll go up and come down once, twice, thrice, a hundred times, taking these sisters to Kanthapura,’ and they all turn their carts, and they say, ‘You are a funny fellow — but you say there’s a Mahatma, and maybe his ire will be upon us.’ And they say, ‘Hoye-Hoye,’ and we climb into the carts, and hardly in, head against head and arm against arm, we lean over one another, and we doze and doze and snore and snore, and we groan up the hills and we grind down them, and when we have passed over a rattling river bridge, there’s the familiar noise of dogs barking and doors creaking, and people are heard washing their hands after dinner, and Rangamma says, ‘Stop the carts, brother,’ and we wake up and get down, for we are in Santhapura and Rangamma’s cousin Subbayya is landholder there, and he says to the cartmen, ‘You can go now, I’ll take them home,’ and they get a coconut and betel-leaf goodbye.
And we all sit in the hall, and Subbayya’s wife, Satamma, says, ‘Oh, take only this much milk, Aunt! — Oh, only this banana, Aunt! — Just this handful of puffed rice!’ and we are so tired that we say, ‘Yes, yes.’ And people come from the Potters’ quarter and the Weavers’ quarter and say, ‘We came to give you welcome. So it’s you who fought the police!’ and an old woman comes to the door and says, ‘Learned sir, I hear there are some pilgrims come, and I have a new calved cow, and I can offer fresh milk to the pilgrims,’ and this way and that, milk and syrup and puffed rice and coconuts are offered and we tell them each our story and they say, ‘Oh, poor Mother — oh, poor Mother,’ and we get courageous and say, ‘But that is what we should do to drive the British out!’ Then, when we get up to go, lantern after lantern is seen in the courtyard, and everybody says, ‘We shall follow you up to Kanthapura. One never knows these days. Why, only this morning we found elephant dung at the temple corner.’ And they gave us new carts, and beadles walked in front of us, lanterns in their hands, and before them walked Iron-shop Imam Khan, gun in hand and fire in his eyes, and our carts clattered and creaked through the dense, droning night, by the Gold-mine hill and Siva’s gorge and up the Menu crag and down again to the valleys of the Himavathy, where lies Kanthapura curled like a child on its mother’s lap. And when the carts had waded through the still, purring waters of the river and the bulls crunched over the sands of the other bank, we said, ‘Here we are,’ and mother and wife and widow-godmother went up to their lighted, lizard-clucking homes. And when the wounds were washed and the bandages tied, we lay upon our beds, and it seemed as though the whole air was filled with some pouring presence, and high up, from somewhere over the Skeffington Coffee Estate and the Kenchamma hill and the Himavathy, night opened its eyes to let gods peep through the tiles of Kanthapura. Sister, when Ramakrishnayya and Satamma returned from their pilgrimage, what did they say? They said, in Kashi, when the night fell, gods seemed to rise from the caverns of the Ganges, to rise sheer over the river, each one with his consort, and each one with his bull or peacock or flower throne, and peep into the hearts of pilgrim men. May our hearts be touched by their light! May Kenchamma protect us!