He’ll never come again, Moorthappa.
The god of death has sent for him,
Buffalo and rope and all,
They stole him from us, they lassoed him at night,
He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone, Moorthappa,
and Rachanna’s wife, indignant and dishevelled, cried out:
Hè, leave us our men, he, leave us our souls,
Hè, leave us our king of the veranda seat,
But say, sisters, he’s gone, he’s gone, Moorthappa,
He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone, Moorthappa,
and they clapped hands again, and they wiped the tears out of their eyes, and more and more women flowed out of the Pariah street and the Potters’ street and the Weavers’ street, and they beat their mouths the louder, and the children ran behind the fences and slipped into the gutters and threw stones at the police, and a soldier got a stone on his face and the police rushed this side and that and caught this girl and that. And the women stopped sobbing and when Rachanna’s grandson called out, ‘Catch me if you can,’—they caught him and held him leg up and head down and — flap-flap-flap — they beat him on the buttocks and head and spine and knee, and they threw him on the grass edge. And the women stopped their sobbing, and one here and one there they rushed towards the child and they laid him on their laps and wiped the blood from his mouth and they said, ‘Rangappa, Rangappa, wake up Rangappa!’ but only slobber flowed from his mouth, and all of a sudden a tearing, gasping yell came from the women again, while the coolies marched blinking and blank before them and even the voice of God seemed to have died out of their tongues.
But we who were on the promontory could bear the sight no more, what with Rachanna gone and Rachanna’s grandson gone and Moorthy gone, too, and we shouted out, ‘Butchers, butchers, dung-eating curs!’ And the police rushed at us, and we slipped away by the temple yard and the cactus growth, but they saw us, and stones flew at us and sticks, and the swing of the whip, and they whipped us and kicked us and spat on us, and when Puttamma shouted, ‘Cur! Cur!’ a policeman flings his lathi at her legs and down she falls and, smacking his lips and holding her breasts, he says, ‘Take care, my dove, you know what I would do with you,’ and we who are trying to run away, slip round and say, ‘No, no, we must not run away,’ and we run round and round the mango tree and the lantana bushes, and we think of Puttamma and her husband and her child and her mother-in-law, and we think of God, and the yell of the Pariah women still comes rolling across the promontory, and we feel like mad elephants and we do not know where to go. And then there is a loud cry, ‘Ayoo-ayoo,’ and it’s Puttamma’s, and we rush towards her, creeping and crawling beneath the lantana bushes, and then, when we are on the path again, we see a policeman upon her, and we feel our limbs earth-like and we want to pull him up, and Puttamma is all black in her cheek and her mouth gagged, and we cry out, ‘Help! Help!’ but from the Main street and the Pariah street we hear nothing but shouts and lamentations, and we rush away to get help, and we see street after street filled with policemen — policemen on the veranda and by the granary and on the threshold and over the byre; and when we enter there’s nothing to be seen but uniformed policemen. The shrieks of the Pariah women are still shrill in the air, and where shall we find someone, where? And we run to the backyard and the police are behind us. And Puttamma?
Seethamma goes to her neighbour Lingamma, for Lingamma is an old woman and she has done nothing, but the police are already there, and when they see Seethamma they say, ‘Ah, you’ve come, my bitch, and your husband is in prison and you need some cooling down,’ and she shrieks out and she rushes to find refuge somewhere — and Kanthamma and Nanjamma and Vedamma and I are there, and as we ask, ‘What is it, daughter?’ a lathi bangs on her head and she falls down as flat as a sack, and from the byre wall comes the voice of a policeman, ‘Ah, you’re out for a moonlight party, are you?’ We rush towards the temple, and shrieks come from the Brahmin street and the Weavers’ street and the cattle began to moo and moan, and the flap-flap of the whips is still heard from the mango grove beyond the promontory, for the coolies were still being marched on — and we think neither of Puttamma nor Seethamma nor Moorthy nor the Mahatma, but the whole world seems a jungle in battle, trees rumbling, lions roaring, jackals wailing, parrots piping, panthers screeching, monkeys jabbering, jeering, chatter-chattering, black monkeys and white monkeys and the long-tailed ones, and the flame of forest angry around us, and if Mother Earth had opened herself and said, ‘Come in, children,’ we should have walked down the steps and the great rock would have closed itself upon us — and yet the sun was frying-hot.
And we ran here and we ran there to seek refuge, and in Satamma’s house and Post-office-house and Nine-pillared house, man after man had been taken away during the night, while we had slept the sleep of asses, and the women who had their husbands taken away were tied to the pillars and their mouths gagged, and those who said, ‘No, no,’ were asked not to leave their houses till midday, and that was why there were so few women at the promontory and no Rangamma either.
And then we said, stopping, ‘Oh, what has become of Puttamma and Seethamma?’ and we rushed from backyard to backyard; and zinc sheets were removed and sanctum gods and pickle pots and bell-metal vessels were thrown across the streets, and the byres were empty, and bulls and buffaloes and cows and calves had rushed into the kitchen gardens and the granaries; and our hearts were burning with anger, as we turned to this side and that and we said there is but one safe place and that is the temple sanctum, and as we skirted Rajamma’s house, what should we see by Rangamma’s veranda — a crouching elephant, and a crowd around it, and the mahout poking its ears and kicking it, and it roared and it rose, and it wailed, and it dashed against the door, the crowd of policemen cheering it on and on, and we heard the door creak and crash, and a loud shout of ‘Well done!’ arose. But a policeman had seen us and we had seen him, and we cried, ‘Ayoo-ayoo,’ and jumped across the broken wall, and the sparrows rose like a tree from their booty of rice, and we asked ourselves, ‘Which way shall we go — which way?’ And we hurried through the central hall, and we rushed to the veranda to see Seethamma’s courtyard, where beds and bells and broomsticks lay strewn everywhere, and across the byre walls children were heard weeping; and we said, ‘Let’s slip past Ratnamma’s vegetable garden,’ and we jumped across the fence and from behind the jackfruit tree, where we stand to take breath, we see the barricades of the Karwar road, with one man and two men and three men and four men around and a white officer beside them. And from the Pariah quarter there comes a yell, and we look to this side and that and we see nothing, and then suddenly on the Bebbur mound we see the coolies still marching, bent-headed coolies still marching up, and the Pariah women, tired, still yelp but with broken breath, and we say, ‘Oh, what about Radhamma, Ramayya’s Radhamma, who is ill?’ and Kanakamma, who was with us, says she passed by Radhamma’s door and she heard the second child crying, and a bundle of hay lay at her door, and we say we should one of us go there, and Timmamma says she would go and she was old and nobody would notice her. But suddenly we see ten or twelve women hurrying round the temple corner, and the police whips swishing, and children following them screaming, and there’s Radhamma among them and Radhamma is trying to run, too, and we say, ‘Shout to her to come up to this garden,’ but Timmamma says, ‘No shouting,’ and slips down the lantana growth and she sees Radhamma and Radhamma sees her and they all rush towards us, and we say, ‘This is not safe, let us run to Nanjamma’s backyard,’ and Radhamma is behind us and Timmamma is leading her by the hand, and suddenly Radhamma gives a cry and falls and she twists her body about and screams and we gather round her, and we say, ‘Perhaps the moment is come,’ but Timmamma says, ‘It’s only seven months, no, no, it’s not that,’ but it was that indeed, and the child comes yelling out and Timmamma tears the navel-string with her sari-fringe and the dirt is thrown into the earth, but the mother is still moaning and shrieking and crying. And then there’s a cry in the Post-office-house, and we ask, ‘Oh, what? Oh, what?’ and Timmamma says, ‘Go and see, sisters,’ and we duck down and run, and the nearer we are the surer is the voice and it is the voice of Ratna, and we enter by the bathroom, where the fire is still burning and the calf still munching the straw, and we rush to the kitchen to see Ratna fallen on the floor, her legs tied ankle to ankle and her bodice torn, and the policeman, when he sees us, slips away over the wall, and Ratna, sobbing and hugging us, told us how she had fallen on her stomach again and again and had spat and had screamed and had beat him with her hands, and we were so happy we had come in time, and we bent down and loosened the strings, and as no policeman was near us, we said, ‘Now we shall stay here for a breath,’ and little Vedamma went to bring Radhamma and her child, and we all sat in the kitchen, our eyes groping.