Chapter 17-

ΤHE FOLLOWING Tuesday was market-day in Kanthapura, and we had risen early and lit the kitchen fires early and had cooked the meals early and we had finished our prayers early, and when the food was eaten and the vessels washed and the children sent with the cattle for this time they wouldn't come with us-we all gathered at the temple, and when Seenu had blown the conch and lit the camphor, we all marched towards the Kenchamma grove, and the cattle sellers stopped their cows and calves to see us, and the oil women put down their oil-jugs and asked, 'Where are you going, brothers and sisters?', and old Nanjamma who could never hold her tongue says, ' Why, to picket toddy shops' and Moorthy cries out, 'Silence! Silence!' and the cart men pull aside the bulls and jump out of the carts to see the procession pass by, and when we are by the Skeffington Coffee Estate, Betel Lakshamma, who sells flowers for the Kenchamma worship, is there and she says to Moorthy, And you are the soldiers of the Mahatma? And it's you who defied the Police?', and Moorthy smiles and says, 'Yes, mother,' and she says, 'Then you'll free us from the Revenue Collector?', and Moorthy says, 'What Revenue Collector?'-'Why, Raghavayya, the one who takes bribes and beats his wife and sends his servants to beat us,'-and Moorthy does not know what to answer and he says, 'We are against all tyrants,' and she says, 'Why, then, come Τ HE FOLLOWING Tuesday was market-day in Kan- thapura, and we had risen early and lit the kitchen fires early and had cooked the meals early and we had finished our prayers early, and when the food was eaten and the vessels washed and the children sent with the cattle for this time they wouldn't come with us-we all gathered at the temple, and when Seenu had blown the conch and lit the camphor, we all marched towards the Kenchamma grove, and the cattle sellers stopped their cows and calves to see us, and the oil women put down their oil-jugs and asked, 'Where are you going, brothers and sisters?', and old Nanjamma who could never hold her tongue says, ' Why, to picket toddy shops' and Moorthy cries out, 'Silence! Silence!' and the cart men pull aside the bulls and jump out of the carts to see the procession pass by, and when we are by the Skeffington Coffee Estate, Betel Lakshamma, who sells flowers for the Kenchamma worship, is there and she says to Moorthy, And you are the soldiers of the Mahatma? And it's you who defied the Police?', and Moorthy smiles and says, 'Yes, mother,' and she says, 'Then you'll free us from the Revenue Collector?', and Moorthy says, 'What Revenue Collector?'-'Why, Raghavayya, the one who takes bribes and beats his wife and sends his servants to beat us,'-and Moorthy does not know what to answer and he says, 'We are against all tyrants,' and she says, 'Why, then, come to our village, son, and free us from this childless monster,' and Moorthy says, 'We shall see,' and she says, 'We ask you to come,' and Moorthy says, 'I shall write to the Congress and if they say "Yes", I shall come,' and then old Lakshamma, who is a very clever woman, she says, 'Let us garland you,' and Moorthy cries out 'No, no,' but she says this and that, and garlands him and says, 'You are my Lord, and though I saw you like a rat on your mother's lap, I knew you'd do great deeds and bring a good name to the Himavathy'. And when old Madanna of the banana shops sees this, he stops his bulls and tears a few bananas from the banana bunch and he offers them to Moorthy and Moorthy says, 'May the country bless you, Madanna '.

And we march on and on, winding up the Karwar Road to the Kenchamma grove, and at every step there are corn-people and puffed-rice and Bengal gram people and bangle sellers and buttermilk people and betel-leaf people, and they stop us and say, 'Take this, take this, Mahatma's men!' And then suddenly a car comes hooting down the valley and they say, 'Per- haps the Taluk magistrate?'' Perhaps the Collector Sahib? Perhaps the planter Sahib?'-and they are so frightened that they jump over the gutters and slip behind the trees and the car rushes past us and we see a Red-man's face and a Red-man's beard and a Red-man's hat, and people say 'Why, that's the good Solpur Padrè!' and Ratna says, 'No, no,' but Moorthy cries out Silence, please,' and we grow dumb. And the nearer we come to the fair the larger is the crowd behind us, and our hearts beat hard, and when we are by the Kenchamma grove, Moorthy says, ' One man or woman at every arm's length,' and seventy-seven in all we stand by the Kenchamma grove and up the Skeffington Road, one man or woman at every arm's length, and Moorthy stood over the Monkey's bridge, with Ratna and Rangamma beside him, and across the rivulet, on the dry meadow crouched the toddy booth, but the Police were already there.

We had never stepped upon the Coffee Estate Road, and each time the cart passed by the Kenchamma grove in secret fear we would never look towards it. And we imagined the Sahib standing here, standing there, by the Buxom pipal-tree, by the Ramanna well, and we thought there he's looking for a woman, he's behind the aloes there. And the leaves would flutter and there would be a cough or sneeze, and our limbs would tremble and we would look away to the Ken- chamma grove, and sometimes, when on a morning a cow or a calf strayed over the Skeffington Road, we cried out Hey-Hey' from the Main Road and we waited for a pariah to come and we sent him to drive it home. And today, as we stood on the Skeffington Road, broad and bright with the margosa trees that lined it to the iron gate, where two giant banyans hovered from either side, as we looked up the hill, up the twisted road and past the trees to the porch and the stables and the bamboo nettings of the bungalow, a shiver ran down our backs, and we all wondered how Moorthy could stand so near the gate. And yet Moorthy was calm and talking away, waiting for the first coolie to come out, the first coolic who would come out with his week's earnings at his waist, and go straight to the toddy booth; and we waited and waited. Vasudev had told us it was Pariah Siddayya who would lead them out, and we looked this side and that, and we said, 'They're coming! they're coming!' and we looked at the Estate trees, high and lean and protective, and the little coffee shrubs beneath, and there were birds in them and wind and darkness, and as the sky was growing cloud-covered, we said, 'Now it is going to rain and the people will not come out,' and yawning and perspiring we look away towards the market where people are hurriedly putting up their shops, the pegs are hammered in and the tents stretched out and the carts are emptied and the bulls wave their heads and flap their cars to drive away the flies, and then one by one they kneel and flop down for a comfortable munch and donkeys bray and pigs snort and the Padre's voice comes curling up the tamarind tree with pancake smoke from Puttamma's frying-pan, and there is music with the Padre's voice and it is tam- bourin music and band music, and the cymbals beat, and people gather and the Padrè sings on and on in Harikatha, while carts come round the Kenchamma Hill and people come behind them, and when they see us they come near us and they talk to Moorthy, and Moorthy explains to them why we are here and they say, laughing, Why, you will never stop a man drink- ing!' and others say, 'Ah, you are like that Padrè there talking of drink and sin'. Yet others say, 'You are right, learned sir, but if you put a dog on the throne, he'll jump down on the sight of dirt; thus we are,' but Moorthy says, 'No, no, you cannot straighten a dog's tail but you can straighten a man's heart'.

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 hearthe wind whistling before the rain patters on the trees,and the cawing of a crow or two; and we say to our-selves, 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 the 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 pock-marked 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 coolic 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 to- wards 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 to- wards the toddy booth; and then a drop of rain falls, more drops of rain fall, and the coolies are still march- ing 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 shriek- ing 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 frightened, 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 'Vande 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 raise; 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 ex- altation growing in us, and we shouted out 'Vande Mataram!'-and everybody cried 'Vande 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 and 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 coolics of the Godaveri, and the rain still pours on.

We wake up in a lorry and we are put on our legs by the Promontory and we march back home, sixty- seven in all, for Siddayya and my Seenu and Vasudev and Nanjamma's husband Subbu and Rangè Gowda are taken to prison. But Moorthy they would not take, and God left him still with us. The next morning we woke up to find that the Pariah Street was filled with new huts and new fires and new faces and we knew that over three and thirty or more of the coolies of the Godaveri had come to live with us. And men on foot and horse and cart came from Kanthur and Subbur and Tippur and Bebbur to see Moorthy and join us. And we all said, 'The army of the Mahatma is an increasing garland. May our hearts be pure as the morning flowers and may He accept them!' For, after all, sister, when one has a light on the forehead one can march a thousand leagues. Siva is poison-throated, and yet He is the Three-eyed. May the Three-eyed Siva protect us. . . THEN THE PEOPLE in Rampur picketed the Rampur Toll-Gate teddy booth, and use people of Sidda- pur the Siddapur Tea-Estate toddy booth, and the people of Maddur the Maddur-Fair toddy shop, and men and women and children would go to the toddy booths and call to the drinkers Brothers and sisters and friends, do not drink in the name of the Mahatma! The Mahatma is a man of God; in his name do not drink and bring sin upon yourself and upon your com- munity!' And songs were made by the people,

The toddy tree is a crooked tree, And the toddy milk a scorpion milk, And who is it that uses the scorpion milk, sister? And who uses the scorpion milk, sister? Why, the wandering witches of the marshes;

Say, sister, say the wandering witches of the marshes, And the witch has a turban and a lathi stick, O King, O King, why won't you come? and people sang it on the river path and behind the temple, and washing the thresholds and rinsing the vessels and plastering the walls with dung-cakes did they sing, and women sang this to their men, and sons sang this to their fathers, and when somebody said in Bombay and Lahore did people gather at dawn to go singing through the streets, women in Rampur said, We, too, shall do it,' and they, too, rose up at dawn and gathered at the temple, and they, too, went singing through the twilit streets and stood before house after house and sang,

Our King, he was born on a wattle-mat, He's not the King of the velvet bed, He's small and he's round and he's bright and he's sacred, O, Mahatma, Mahatma, you're our king, and we are your slaves.

White is the froth of the toddy, toddy, And the Mahatma will turn poison into nectar clear, White will become blue and black will become white, Brothers, sisters, friends and all, The toddy-tree is a crooked tree, And the toddy milk is scorpion milk, O King, O King, when will you come?

And some who were intelligent, like the city boys, would say, 'Oh, brothers, in the name of the Mahatma do not drink, for drinking is bad and the Government profits by your vice and the usurer profits by your debt and your wife goes unclothed and your children unfed and never again will you see a hut and hearth,' and so on; and some, too, would come to fetch a pariah or a potter from Kanthapura to help them in their fight, and Moorthy would say 'Go, go with him,' and through the night they would wade across the river by the Kenchamma Hill, where no policeman could catch them, and off they would go through the cactus growth and the cardamom gardens and the tamarind grove to picket the toddy shops, and when they came back they told us this about their wounded and that about their women; and when Potter Ramayya came back from Santur he said that in house after house they had a picture of Moorthy, in house after house a picture of our Moorthy taken from city papers, and seems they said, 'Tell us something about this big man?' and Potter Ramayya would weave out story after story and they would say, 'You are a happy people to have a man like that. And we were so proud that we said we would bear the lathi blows and the prisons and we would follow our great Moorthy, and day after day we said, 'What next, Moorthy?', and day after day he would say, 'Today fast, for Vasudev is going on hunger strike,' or, Today you will offer a feast for the liberation of Potter Chandrayya'. And when the feast was ready we went, trumpet and horn before us, to receive Chandrayya, and he told us of the knuckle- beatings and back-canings. 'Bend down and hold.

your toes,' they were told, and when they bent down, a Red-man would come with canes kept in oil and-- bang-bang-he would beat them on their buttocks and on their knees and on their thighs. And then he would say 'Salute,' and they would say 'Salute what?' and he would say, 'The Government flag'; and some- one would cry out 'Vande Mataram!' and everyone would take it up, and shout out Mataram Vande!' and there would be showers of lathi blows. And he told us, too, of the city boy who, while the lathi blows fell, rushed across the courtyard, clambered up the drain-pipe and the guava tree and the roof and hoisted high the National flag, and he was dragged down and kicked and caned and given a solitary cell, and he could not speak a word, and they gave him only this water as lentil soup and that washed paddy as rice, and he would shout and say, 'Take it away,' and the jailer would bang the door behind him, and with the caning ceremony again, the food would be thrust into his mouth and pushed in with their fingers; and at every shriek came a swish of the cane, and then he would vomit all and lie in troubled sleep. 'And yet he bore it all,' said Chandrayya. 'And though he was a brahmin, he ate with us and slept by us and worked with us and said, "brahmin or no brahmin, for the same stomach hungers in all men," and he spoke of the Hammer-and-Sickle country, and always and always of the Hammer-and-Sickle country, and so we called him the Hammer-and-Sickle boy. But they gave him a pair of fetters again and a solitary cell, and we never saw him again.'

But it was Seetharamu who came out of prison and told us the most terrible story. He said he had the great fever three days after he had been in prison, and they ordered him to get out as usual and grind the oil-seed, and though he said he was too weak the warders cried Ass! Pig! Badmash!' and beat him with their canes and drove him to the yoke; and there they put him to a mill and, whip in hand, they cried, 'Hoy-hoy' as though he were a bull, and made him run round and round the oil-mill until he had ground three maunds of peanut oil. Then suddenly he could run no more and gasping he fell on the floor and nothing but blood came out of his mouth, blood and nothing but blood, and so they released him and he lay in Ratnamma's house for a fortnight and more. And Moorthy said, 'That is how you should be. Bear all as though your Karma willed it and everything will be borne'. And we said 'So be it! If Seetharamu and Pariah Lingayya and Chandrayya and Ratnamma's husband Shamu can bear it, why not we?' and we said, 'Let it come and we shall do this for Moorthy and that for Moorthy,' and day after day we went out to picket this toddy shop and that, and Boranna said, 'Now, I am not going to keep a shop where there's no sale,' and he closed it, and Satanna closed his shop and said, I am not going to bear in this life and in all lives to come the sin of women being beaten,' and Madayya said, 'Why, I am but a servant of the toddy contractor, and why should I see the Police beat our women and men?', and he joined us, and the Blue paper said there were four and twenty shops closed in Kanthapura hobli and we said, 'That is a great thing'.

And then we turned to Moorthy and said, 'And what now?' and Moorthy said, 'Why, the June 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 police- men 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 back yard 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 loin-cloth, and Postmaster Suryanarayana and Shopkeeper Subba Chetty and of course Agent Nan- jundia, and the terror-stricken Devaru the school- master who owed only two rupees and five annas for his Belfield, 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 Govern- ment,' 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 bath- room 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 there before you have swallowed your spittle thrice,' and he said, 'I am going, sister,' and then the footsteps died away over the back- yard 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.