But suddenly he leaves them and runs forward and we say something is the matter, and Moorthy stops on the bridge and looks towards the Skeffington Estate gate, and we all look towards it, too, and we only hear the wind whistling before the rain patters on the trees, and the cawing of a crow or two; and we say to ourselves, so there’s nothing the matter, nothing. Then we hear a sputter of leaves and see dark shapes behind the leaves and we hold our breath and say, ‘There they are; they’re coming,’ and when the gateway opens, there’s a seesaw lightning and we hide our faces behind our saris and we are afraid; and when we look up at the gate, it’s not the coolies we see but the maistri, in white, clean-washed clothes, and he stands and looks at us and drives away the flies from his pockmarked face. Then he goes in and Moorthy says, ‘March forward!’ and trembling and thumping over the earth we move forward, and we say something is going to happen, and nothing but the wind that rises from the Coffee Estate is heard, and we look away across the streamlet to the fields that widen out into the valley and the russet crops under the clouds. Then the police inspector saunters up to the Skeffington gate, and he opens it and one coolie and two coolies and three coolies come out, their faces dark as mops and their blue skin black under the clouded heavens, and perspiration flows down their bodies and their eyes seem fixed to the earth — one coolie and two coolies and three coolies and four and five come out, eyes fixed to the earth, their stomachs black and clammy and bulging, and they march towards the toddy booth; and then suddenly more coolies come out, more and more and more like clogged bulls clattering down the byre steps they come out, and the women come behind them, their sari-fringes drawn over their faces and their eyes fixed on the earth, and policemen walk beside them, they walk beside the coolies with bulging stomachs and bamboo legs, coolies of the Godaveri banks, and they are marched on to the toddy booth, to Boranna’s toddy booth, to drink and to beat the drum and to clap hands and sing — they go, the coolies, their money tied to their waists and their eyes fixed on the earth, and Moorthy looks at them and we all look at them, and we, too, move towards the toddy booth; and then a drop of rain falls, more drops of rain fall, and the coolies are still marching towards the toddy booth; and we look at them and they look at us, goat-eyed and dumb and their legs shuffling over the earth, and we say, ‘What will Moorthy do now? What?’ Then Moorthy says, ‘Squat down before the toddy booth,’ and we rush and we stumble, and we rise and we duck, and we all go squatting before the toddy booth, and the coolies are marching behind us and the policemen tighten round the booth, and then, quick and strong, the rain patters on the leaves and the thatch and the earth. Maybe that’s the blessing of the gods!
With the rain came the shower of lathi blows, with the rain splashing on our hair came the bang-bang of the lathis, and we began to cry and to scream, and the policemen began to beat the coolies forward, but they would not walk over us, and they would not fall on us, and from the toddy booth came the voice of Boranna, and he shouted and he spat and he said he would give the Brahmins a toddy libation, while the crowd shouted back at him and called him a life-drag and a nail-witch and a scorpion, and the police inspector, more furious than ever, took his cane and drove at the crowd, and the crowd thinned out shrieking and moaning, and then the market people, when they heard the noise covered their heads with gunny bags and ran towards us, and the crowd clamoured all the more, and somebody shouted, ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!’ and the whole crowd shouted, ‘Jai Mahatma!’ and they pushed on towards us — and the police became frightened and caned and caned the coolies till they pushed themselves over us; and they put their feet here and they put their hands there, but Rangamma shouted, ‘Vandè Mataram! Lie down, brothers and sisters,’ and we all lay down so that not a palm-width of space lay bare, and the coolies would not move, and we held to their hands and we held to their feet and we held to their saris and dhotis and all, while the rain poured on and on. And the police got nervous and they began to kick us in our backs and stomachs, and the crowd shouted, ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!’ and someone took a kerosene tin and began to beat it, and someone took a cattle bell and began to ring it, and they cried, ‘With them, brothers, with them!’ and they leaped and they ducked and they came down to lie beside us, and we shouted, ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai! Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!’
Then the police inspector rushed at the coolies and whipped them till they began to search their way again among us, but we began to call out to them, ‘Oh don’t go, brother! — don’t go, sister! — oh, don’t go, in the name of the Mahatma! — oh, don’t go in the name of Kenchamma!’ and our men pulled the coolies down, and one after another the coolies fell over and they too blocked the way, and the police, feeling there was no way out, caught hold of us by the hair to lift us up, and we struggled and we would not rise; and when Rangamma was made to sit, the police inspector gave her such a kick in the back that she fell down unconscious, and Ratna cried out, ‘Oh, you dogs,’ and the police inspector spat in her face and gave her a slap that brought blood out of her mouth. But Moorthy said, ‘No swearing, please. Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!’ and we all cried out, ‘Jai Mahatma!’ and such a crowd had now gathered around us that we felt a secret exaltation growing in us, and we shouted out, ‘Vandè Mataram!’— and everybody cried, ‘Vandè Mataram!’ and somebody remembered, ‘And at least a toddy leaf, sister,’ and we sang back, ‘And at least a toddy pot, sister,’ while the rain poured on and on, a thunderless rain, and the streamlets began to trickle beneath us and our hair was caught in the mire and our hands and our backs and our mouths bled, and then, when we lifted ourselves up a little, we saw one, two, three coolies entering the toddy booth. And Moorthy shouted out again, ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!’ and a blow gagged his mouth, and he could not shout again. And then Seetharam and old Nanjamma and all of us said, ‘He’s fallen, Moorthy. He’s dead, Moorthy. Oh, you butchers!’ And we shouted, as though to defend him, ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!’ and old Nanjamma cried, ‘Narayan! Narayan!’ and what with the oaths and cries and the ‘Narayan! Narayan!’ and the thuds of the lathi and the ringings of the cattle bells and the rain on the earth and the shouts of the market people and the kerosene tin that still beat, we all felt as though the mountains had split and the earth wailed, and the goddess danced over the corpse of the Red Demon. And when the police inspector gave an order, we all pressed our heads tight to the earth to wait a lathi shower, but the police gathered together and charged on the crowd and dispersed it and we could hear the tents falling and the clash of vessels and bells and benches, and with hardly a policeman about us, the coolies rushed again towards us, and called upon us, ‘Sister, sister; brother, brother,’ and we said, ‘Do not drink, do not drink, in the name of the Mahatma,’ and they said, ‘By Kenchamma’s name, we shall not,’ and when they see this, the policemen leave the market people and rush again upon us, and they drag the Pariahs by the leg and beat them, and we rise up and we say, ‘Beat us,’ and they say, ‘Here is one for you,’ and we get a kick on the stomach, and we lie flat upon the earth. Then the police inspector says, ‘Throw water on them,’ and the police go to the toddy booth and come out with pots in their hands, and they dip the pots in the side gutters and potfuls and potfuls of water are thrown at us, and they open our mouths and they pour it in and they lift up our saris and throw it at unnameable places, and the water trickles down our limbs and drips down to the earth, and with more beating and more beating and more beating we fall back one by one against the earth, one by one we fall by the coolies of the Godaveri, and the rain still pours on.