And then we turned to Moorthy and said, ‘And what now?’ and Moorthy said, ‘Why, the June tax assessments are going to begin and there will be much trouble,’ and we said, ‘Then that’s good,’ and we bandaged our wounds and put on our bangles and we lived on as before, and the peasants went into the ripening fields and led water here and led water there, and weeded and raked and built boundary walls, and they turned to Kenchamma and said, ‘O you protector of water and field, protect this!’ But day after day, revenue notices fell yellow into our hands, and we said, ‘Let them do what they will, we shall not pay our revenues.’ And the new patel came, and behind the patel came the policeman and behind the policeman the landlord’s agent, and we said, ‘Do what you will, we shall not pay.’ And the policemen would shake their fists at us and say, ‘Take care, take care. Things are not as before. You pay or the Government will squeeze water out of stone. You will have to pay,’ and we would stand beside the threshold and say, ‘We shall see.’ And then we would rush through the backyard to see Rangamma or Moorthy, and they would say, ‘Don’t worry, sister, don’t worry’; and the police would go to the Pariah quarter and beat Rachanna’s wife because her husband was in prison, and Madanna’s old mother because she was speaking to Rachanna’s wife, and Siddanna’s two daughters because they squatted behind the garden wall and sang:
There’s one government, sister,
There’s one government, sister,
And that’s the government of the Mahatma.
And they beat Puttamma’s father because he had spat on the false patel, and Motanna’s young son, Sidda, for the policemen had made eyes at his sister and he had thrown dung in their faces. And the policemen had tied him to a pillar and beat him before all, and when they went out, down came a shower of old slippers and old broomsticks and rags and dung and stone, and, swearing and threatening, the policemen left the quarter. And but for Priest Rangappa, who paid for Bhatta, and Waterfall Venkamma, who had lands wide as a loincloth, and Postmaster Suryanarayana and Shopkeeper Subba Chetty and of course Agent Nanjundia, and the terror-stricken Devaru the schoolmaster who owed only two rupees and five annas for his bel field, and Concubine Chinna, for she said she knew neither Government nor Mahatma and she paid for those who look after her lands as they paid her for what she gave them— it’s only these one, two, three, four, five, six, seven families that paid the revenue dues; and Moorthy said, ‘That is great; we shall win. We shall win the battle and we shall defeat the Government,’ and day after day we woke up and said, ‘Today they’ll come to attach our property. Today they’ll take away our vessels and our sacks,’ and we dug the earth and hid our jewels and we dragged down the vessels and threw them into the wells and we thrust rice sacks and jaggery sacks and lentil sacks behind the bath fuel, and we said, ‘Well, let them find it, we shall see.’ But no policeman ever came again to our houses, though one heavy morning all the roads and lanes and paths and cattle tracks were barricaded, by Kenchamma hill and Devil’s field and Bebbur mound and the river path and the Pariah lane and the Skeffington path — stones upon stones were piled on the road and tree upon tree was slain and laid beside them, and canal banks were dug and the water let through, and thorns were laid where cactuses grew and earth was poured over it all, and one, two, three, four, five, six policemen stood behind them, bayonets and bugles in their hands, and for chief had they a tall white man.
That afternoon there was a beating of drums and we slipped behind our doors and we peeped between the chinks and we heard a new beadle cry out, with long ‘aas’ and long ‘gaas’ as though he had never drunk the waters of the Himavathy, that if the revenues were not paid and the laws obeyed, every man, woman and child above six in Kanthapura would pay one rupee and three pice, one rupee and three pice as punitive tax, for new policemen were there to protect us and new money had to be paid for them, and the Government would rule the country and the troublesome ones, one after another, would be sent to prison. And when the night fell, through the bathroom came a soft tap-tap like a lizard spitting, and when we went, lantern in hand and trembling, and said, ‘Who may that be?’ a voice came and it was Moorthy’s, and we opened the door and said, ‘Come in, come in, Moorthy,’ and he said, ‘No, no, sister, I’ve come to say the fight has really begun. And if the patel or policeman or agent should enter the house, take the sanctum bell and ring, and we shall know they are there and we shall be here before you have swallowed your spittle thrice,’ and he said, ‘I am going, sister,’ and then the footsteps died away over the backyard gravel. So, Rangamma and Ratna and Moorthy went from house to house to speak of the sanctum bell that should ring, and we kept our lights and we thrust logs against the doors, and we kept our eyes open all through that empty night, and not even a fair cart ever passed by the streets of Kanthapura. Only the cattle chewed the cud and the rats squeaked through the granaries, and when a lizard clucked we said, ‘Krishna, Krishna,’ and with dawn came sleep.
17
The next morning, when the thresholds were adorned and the cows worshipped and we went to sweep the street-fronts, what should we see by the temple corner but a slow-moving procession of coolies — the blue, pot-bellied, half-naked coolies, tied hand to hand and arm to arm — boys, old men, fathers, brothers, bridegrooms, coolies of the Skeffington Coffee Estate who had come to live with us and to work with us and to fight with us — they marched over the bouldered streets, their blue bodies violet in the glittering sun, and with one policeman to every two men and one armed soldier at the back and one armed soldier at the front, they marched through the Brahmin street and the Weavers’ street, and the Potters’ street, and children ran shrieking into the houses and women who were drawing water went empty-handed, and now and again one could hear the flip-flap of the whip and a cry or a yelp — the coolies of the Skeffington Coffee Estate were marched bent-headed through our streets to show who our true masters were, and we knew they would be driven over the Bebbur mound and the Bear’s hill and the Tippur stream, and two by two they would be pushed behind the gates, for the white master wanted them. And our hearts curdled and we cried, ‘Oh, what shall we do? What?’ and the sanctum bell did not ring, nor the conch blow, and something in us said, ‘Moorthy, where is Moorthy?’ and our hearts beat like the wings of bats, and we clenched our hands, and we rushed in, swirled round, and fell prostrate before the sanctum gods, and yet no call came. But out of the flapping silence suddenly there came from over the promontory a shout and a cry and shriekings and weepings and bellowings, and we rose and slipped by the cactus fence and the lantana growths, and through the plantain plantation of Nanjamma, to the temple, and from the top we saw below the Pariah women and the Pariah girls and the Pariah kids and the Pariah grandmothers, beating their mouths and shouting, tight squatting on the path to stop the march of the coolies, shouting and swaying and clapping hands and lamenting:
He’ll never come again, he’ll never come again,