And more and more women joined us, and children followed them, and old men followed the children, and there was a close silence, and everybody sat looking at the tight hall door, when suddenly it opened, and there was Ratna, and she said something to Seethu and Seethu said something to her neighbour and the neighbour said something to us, and we all gathered our sari-fringes and we waited, and the door opened again, and one of the boys came out, and with him was Pariah Madanna, and we said, ‘So, he’s back, hè?’ and we looked at each other and we looked at Madanna’s wife and Madanna’s wife smiled back at us knowingly, and we said, ‘So, he, too, was only in the jungles,’ and we said surely there are many others that have come back, and our stomachs heaved with joy. And more men came out of the hall, and there they were, Puttanna and Chandrayya and Seethanna and Borappa and Potter Sidda — and the city boys, they were like princes, fair and smiling and firm, and one of the Volunteers, the one with a square face and a shaking head, he stood by the threshold, and said, ‘Sisters, there is nothing to be frightened about. We knew the Government would auction the lands today, and our men are going to come from the city, hundreds and hundreds of men are going to come from the city, for we have decided to hold a Satyanarayana Puja, and it will be held in this house, and our men will escape from all the policemen the Government can send and all the soldiers the Government can send, and yet men will come from the city, and they will come for the Satyanarayana Puja, and no land will ever be sold, for the Government is afraid of us,’ and Nanjamma says, ‘No, no.’ But the Volunteer goes on, ‘Yes, sister, yes, the Government is afraid of us, for in Karwar the courts are closed and the banks closed and the collector never goes out, and there are policemen at his door and at his gate and beneath his bedroom window, and every white man in Karwar has a policeman beside him, and every white man in Siddapur and Sholapur and Matgi and Malur has a policeman beside him, and it is the same from Kailas to Kanyakumari and from Karachi to Kachar, and shops are closed and bonfires lit, and khadi is the only thing that is sold, while processions and songs and flags go through the streets, picketings and prabhat pheris, and the police will beat and the soldiers open fire, and millions and millions of our brothers and sisters be thrown into prison, and yet go and ask them, who is our King? They will say, “Congress, Congress, Congress and the Mahatma,” and hand in hand they go, shouting, “Victory, victory to the Mahatma.” Brothels are picketed and toddy booths and opium booths and courts are set up and men tried and condemned, and money set in circulation, the money of the Mahatma, and the salt of the sea sold, and the money sent to whom? To the Congress; and it is the same by the Ganges and the Jumna and the Godaveri, by Indus and by Kaveri, in Agra and Ankola, Lucknow and Maunpuri, in Madras, Patna and Lahore, in Calcutta, Peshawar and Puri, in Poona and in Benares — everywhere; and millions and millions of our brothers and sisters have gone to prison, and when the father comes back, the son is taken, and when the daughter is arrested, the mother comes out of prison, and yet there is but one law our people will obey, it is the law of the Congress. Listen, the Government is afraid of us. There is a big city in the north called Peshawar, and there the Government has always thousands and thousands of military men, and our brothers, the Mohammedans, one and all have conquered the city, and no white man will ever come into it. And they have conquered, sisters, without a gunshot, for all are Satyagrahis and disciples of the Mahatma. They bared their breasts and marched towards the machine guns, ten thousand in all, and bullets went through them, and a hundred and twenty-five were shot through and through, and yet they went up and conquered the city. And when our soldiers were sent to shoot them, they would not shoot them. For after all, sisters, these soldiers, too, are Indians, and men like us, and they, too, have wives and children and stomachs to fill as we.’
‘Monsters, monsters,’ Rachanna’s wife cries out. And the Volunteer replies, ‘Monsters, monsters, yes, they may be, but we are out to convert them, the Mahatma says we should convert them, and we shall convert them; our hearts shall convert them. Our will and our love will convert them. And now let us be silent for a while, and in prayer send out our love that no hatred may live within our breasts. And, brothers and sisters, the battle, we will win. ’
And we all closed our eyes and said our prayers, but our eyes would quiver, and we saw cars go up the Bebbur mound and the bel field and the tank field and the big field, filled with these Pariah-looking coolies, and soldiers were at our doors and policemen in our sanctums, and vessels lay broken on the streets, pickle pots and gods and winnowing pales. And we say, ‘No, no — this will not do, this will not do,’ and Ratna says angrily, ‘Then you are not for the Mahatma!’ and we say, ‘We are, we are! — but we have only a loincloth wide of land and that is to be sold away, and who will give us a morsel to eat — who?’ and Ratna says, ‘Oh, don’t you be frightened — the Congress will look after it. Why, the Congress is ours, and much money is there in the Congress, and many a man has sent sacks and sacks of rice, and there are camps in Seethapur and camps in Subbapur, and camps, too, across the Mysore border in Shikaripur and Somapur and Puttapur. ’ But we said, ‘That is not enough, Ratna, and we are not cattle to leave our homes and our fires and the sacred banks of the Himavathy.’
But Ratna was already away and she was saying something to the boys inside, and we all went back home to light our fires and to put something into our stomachs; but the bath fire would not take and the sanctum clothes were not dry, and when we went to the backyard we could see the cars still shining like Brahma’s gates on the Bebbur mound, and the harvest simmering with the north-east wind that came from the Himavathy bend, and rising up the Kenchamma grove and the Bear’s hill went shaking the trees of the Skeffington Coffee Estate, and we felt we could tear our saris to pieces and slice our heads into a million morsels and offer them up to some ten-headed ogre. Of what use all this Satyanarayana Puja—and all these Moorthy’s prayers — and that widowed Ratna’s commands? Prayers never paid revenue dues. Nor would the rice creep back to the granaries. Nor fire consume Bhatta’s promissory notes. Mad we were, daughters, mad to follow Moorthy. When did Kenchamma ever refuse our three morsels of rice — or the Himavathy the ten handfuls of water?. But some strange fever rushed up from the feet, it rushed up and with it our hair stood on end and our ears grew hot and something powerful shook us from head to foot, like Shamoo when the goddess had taken hold of him; and on that beating, bursting day, with the palms and the champaks and the lantana and the silent well about us, such a terror took hold of us, that we put the water jugs on our hips, and we rushed back home, trembling and gasping with the anger of the gods. Moorthy forgive us! Mahatma forgive us! Kenchamma forgive us! We shall go. Oh, we shall go to the end of the pilgrimage like the two hundred and fifty thousand women of Bombay. We will go like them, we will go.!