Chapter 19-

THREE DAYS later, when we were just beginning to THRE say Ram-Ram after the rice had been thrown back into the rice granary, the cradle hung back to the roof, and the cauldron put back on the bath fire, and the gods put back in their sanctum, and all the houses washed and swept and adorned and sanctified, and when one by one our men were slipping in and hurrying back to their jungle retreats, what should we see on that Saturday-for it was a Saturday--but one, two, three cars going up the Bebbur Mound, one, two, three crawling cars going up the Bebbur Mound like a marriage procession, and we all said, 'Why, whose marriage now, when we are beating our mouths and crying?' And we saw men in European clothes get down one by one under the dizzy sun, and soldier after soldier would go towards them and stand at a distance and salute them, and then the Sahib-looking people went down the Mound and by this paddy-field and that, and they would lift this hand and show that way and lift that hand and show this way. Then more horns hooted from the Kenchamma Hill, and this time they were open cars, open cars like those of the Skeffington Coffee Estate, and in them were pariah- looking people, and we said, 'They, too, bring their coolies'. But something in us said, 'Now things are go- ing wrong', and Rachanna's wife rushed to Madamma and Madamma went to see Seethamma and Vedamma, and Vedamma and Seethamma said, 'Come, we'll go and see Ratna, for she is our chief now'. Then suddenly there was a drum-beat and we all rushed behind our doors and the drummer stood at the Temple Square with policemen on the left and policemen on the right, and he said something about the supreme Government and the no-taxer and the rebels, and then we heard the name of this field and that, and we put our ears against the door and we heard of Rangamma's coconut-field and Satanna's triangular field and Pandit Venkateshia's tank-field and Bebbur field, and Seetharamu's plantation-field, and then, when he came to Rangè Gowda's big field, we said, 'Even the big field,' and we knew there was nothing more to do; and we saw sand and water and empty stomachs, and suddenly we knew why these men had come in their cars, and why the cars were followed by open cars, and we all had tears in our eyes. And we rushed down the back yards and jumped over the hedges, and we met Satamma who was standing by her well, her bundle and children beside her; and she said the drummer was saying the village would be sacked again, and she said she had seen enough and she would go away to the town, and she said she had done nothing and she was not a Gandhi person, and it was all this Moorthy, this Moorthy who had brought all this misery upon us. And we asked, 'Where will you go now? The policemen are not your uncle's sons, are they? Come, Satamma, come, we will go to Ratna; for Ratna is our chief now and she will lead us out of it.' But Satamma says, 'What, to that bangled widow? She will lead us all to prostitution, and I am not going to have my daughters violated,' and she said this and that and then she said, 'All right, I'll come,' for she knew there were barricades and policemen at every footpath and cattle-path. So we hurried this way and that to Sami's house where Ratna now lived (for Rangamma's house was under lock and seal), and we knock at the door and somebody comes and says, 'Who is there?' and I say, 'The goat has two teats at the neck and two at the stomach and the stomach teats are we, Vande Mataram,' and they know it is us, and they open the door, and when we enter we find Nanjamma's daughter Seethu and Post-Office- House Lakshmi and Pandit Venkateshia's daughter Papamma, and Sata and Veda and Chandramma, and Rachanna's wife and Madanna's wife and many a pariah woman, and Bangle-seller Ningamma is there too, and they are all looking at the hall door behind which somebody is surely speaking. And we all turn towards them and ask, ' Who?' and they whisper back,

'Why, they!''Who are they? Why, the boys.' -What boys? Moorthy?' No no, the Mahatma's boys,' and then like a flash came the idea. Yes, Moorthy had told us, hadn't he? The city boys would come to our relief. And we all said 'Well, there are all these city people to help us,' and we felt our hearts beat lighter, and when we heard the drummer beat the drum we felt nothing sinister could happen to us, now these boys were there, and they would win us back our harvests.

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 Volunteers 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 flag-salutations 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-every- where; 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 Moho- medans, one and all have conquered the city, and no white man will ever come into it. And they have conquered, sisters, without a gun-shot, 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 Volunteers 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 loin-cloth 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 back yard 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 com- mands? 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 Ken- chamma 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! Ken- chamma 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 . . .!

Men will come from the city, after all, to protect us! We will go...!

We drew two carts across Sami's courtyard so that nobody could see the procession we were preparing and flowers were brought, and sandal and banana trunks, and Ratna went and brought a picture of Satyanarayana and stuck it in the middle, and some- body put a Gandhi at his feet and set a flower upon it, and even sajji was being made in the kitchen, and butter and banana and syrup, and when camphor trays and kumkum trays were decorated and the wicks sharpened, Ratna says somebody will blow the conch from the Promontory at dusk-fall, and the men who would be lying hidden in the jungle and by the river, and village men and city men would rush from this side and that and, with the Satyanarayana procession in front of us, we would go through the Brahmin Street and the Pariah Street to the village gate and across the lanes and the pastures and the canal to do field- Satyagraha. And now and again, when we heard footsteps, we all rushed back into the byre for fear we should be seen, and then Seethamma, who was plucking flowers in the back yard, came and said, 'Sisters, sisters, do you know more buses have come and more men have come from the city for the auctions?' and we all said, Only a pariah looks at the teeth of dead cows. What is lost is lost, and we shall never again look upon our fields and harvests.' And then someone comes run- ning in and says, 'Why, there are women there, too,' and we could not stop our fears and we rushed to see who these bitches could be, and Timmamma, who had keen eyes, says, 'Why, they are our women; can- not you sce? Agent Nanjundia's wife Subbamma is there, and there is Kamalamma's Kanchi sari too,' and we all say, 'Well, one soul lost for us'. Then Tim- mamma says, Why, there is Venkatalakshamma too --Venkatalakshamma who fed Moorthy. Why, sister, a woman who could have starved her stepchildren so, could never be a Gandhi woman,' and Seethamma says, And there is Priest Rangappa's wife Lakshamma too, I think. To buy off for Bhatta, surely,' cried Ratna. And we sought to make out who this woman was and who that woman was, but we could hardly see, for the evening was drawing near. And then suddenly there arose the clamour of the pariah women and the sudra women, for a white man stood there on one of those lorries, and he was turning to this side and saying something, and turning to that side and saying something, and hands were thrust up, and people pressed against one another, and voices shot across the valley as clear and near as though they came from the other side of the Brahmin quarter, and the pariah start, and one by one the cars go down and sail away beyond the Kenchamma Hill, and we say, 'It's lost, it's lost, but they are not going to reap tonight, and it shall be ours one night more'. But from inside the lorries they take out big, strong gas-lights of the city, and like a veritable marriage-procession they bring the lights down-coolie behind coolie brings them down. Dusk falls and night comes and all our fields lie glimmering under the pale yellow lights of the city. Then Sankaru rushes. in and cries out, 'Now, Ratna. blow the conch!'

Ratna blew the conch from the top of the Pro- montory, and with the blowing of the conch rose the Satyanarayan Maharaj ki jai! Satyanarayan Maha- raj ki jai! from Sami's courtyard, and the throne was lifted up, and we marched through the Brahmin Street and the Potters' Street and the Pariah Street and the Weavers' Street, and doors creaked and children ran down the steps, and trays were in their hands, and the camphor was lit and the coconuts broken and the fruits offered, and one by one behind the children came their mothers, and behind their mothers their grandmothers and grand-aunts, and people said, 'Sister, let me hold the torch. Sister, let me hold the sacred fan.' And shoulder after shoulder changed beneath the proces- sion-throne, and the cries of 'Satyanarayan Maharaj ki jai! Satyanarayan Maharaj ki jai!' leapt into the air. And somebody said, 'Let us sing "The Road to the City of Love", and we said 'That's beautiful,' and we clapped our hands and we sang, 'The road to the City of Love is hard, brother'. And hardly were we by the Temple Corner than policeman upon policeman was seen by the village gate, and they were coming, their lathis raised up, and when they saw it was a religious procession they stopped, and we shouted all the louder to show it was indeed a religious song we were singing, and we came nearer. 'It's a religious procession, hè, take care!' says one of them, and Ratna says, 'Oh yes, we'll take care,' and the policemen walked beside us, twisting their moustaches and swear- ing and spitting and blustering, and Ratna stopped every hundred steps and blew the conch three times, and camphors were lit again, and the coconuts broken, and 'Satyanarayan Maharaj ki jai! "was shouted out into the night air. And the Police turned to Lingamma and said, 'Where are you going?', and Lingamma said, 'I do not know'. And they turned to Madamma and said, 'Where are you going?', and Madamma said, 'The gods know, not I,' and they went this side and that and tried to threaten Lakkamma and Madamma and Seethamma and Vedamma, but they shouted out 'Satyanarayan Maharaj ki jai!'

And at last the Police Inspector came, and this time he was on foot, and a policeman followed him lantern in hand, and he stops the procession and Ratna blows the conch three times and says, 'Stop!', and we stop, and he says to Ratna, 'Where do you go?', and Ratna says, head up, 'Where the gods will,' and he says, 'Which way do your gods will?' and he twists his face and laughs at his own joke, and Ratna says, 'Where evil haunts. You will get a nice two years, my nice lady. So be it. And now, Satyanarayan Maharaj ki jai!,' and she gave three long blasts with her conch. And as we began to march, it was not 'Satyanarayan Maharaj ki jai!' that came to our throats but 'Vande Mataram!', and we shouted out Vande Mataram- Mataram Vandè!'; and then suddenly from the dark- ened Brahmin Street and the Pariah Street and the Weavers' Street and the lantana growths came back the cry Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!', and the police were so infuriated that they rushed this side and that, and from this courtyard and that garden, from behind this door and that byre, and from the tops of champak- trees and pipal-trees and tamarind-trees, from beneath horse-carts and bullock-carts, men in white jumped out, men at last from the city, boys, young men, house- holders, peasants, Mohomedans with dhotis to the knees, and city boys with floating shirts and Gandhi caps, and they swarmed around us like veritable mother elephants round their young. And we felt so happy that we cried out Vande Mataram!', and with the groan of the boys and the cry of children under the lathi blows, from the Karwar Road to the Kenchamma Hill voices upon voices rose, and from hill to hill like wild-fires blared Mataram Vande!' And some near us stamped the earth and cried, 'Inquilab Zindabad-Inquilab Zindabad!' And 'Inquilab, Inquilab, Inquilab' rapped out someone clear and fierce through the star- lit air, and Zindabad' we roared back, and such a roar swept through the streets and the valley that we said there are more men still, tens and tens of thou- sands of men, and the policemen's curses were lost in the ringing of bells and the blast of the conch. And then somebody behind us blew the long horn, and it twirled up and swung forth and clattered against the trees of the Skeffington Coffee Estate, and another and another curled up, and yet another that arched over the Kenchamma Hill and the Bebbur Mound and trailed away snaking up to the Blue Mountain tops. And we said more and more men will know of our fight, and more and more of them will come, and we clapped our hands and we stamped the earth and we marched on, and we shouted Inquilab, Inquilab Zindabad!' and between two shouts we asked the city boys, 'Where are we going, where?', and the city boys said, Why, to the barricades. And what barricades? '— 'Why, the Skeffington barricades,' and a neighbour would pinch us and say, 'Say Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!' and we cried out Gandhi Mahatma ki jai!' and the city boys would say, 'We'll take it, sister, we will. In Peshawar the whole city ' and lathi blows fell on us, but Inquilab Zindabad!' was the only answer we gave.

And suddenly, across the Bebbur Mound, we saw shapes crawl along and duck down and rise up, and we said, Perhaps soldiers-soldiers,' but In Pesha- war,' says the city boy, you know they would not shoot,' and we said we too are soldiers, and we are the soldiers of the Mahatma, and this country is ours, and the soldiers are ours and the English they are not ours, and we said to ourselves, a day will come, a day when hut after hut will have a light at dusk, and flowers will be put on the idols, and camphors lit, and as the last Red-man leaps into his boat, and the earth pushes him away, through our thatches will a song rise like a thread of gold, and from the lotus navel of India's earth the Mahatma will speak of love to all men.- 'Say Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!'-'Inquilab Zindabad, Inquilab Zindabad!'-and the Police lathis showered on us, and the procession-throne fell, and the gods fell and the flowers fell and the candelabras fell, and yet the gods were in the air, brother, and not a cry nor lamentation rose, and when we reached the village gate, suddenly from the top of the pipal someone swings down and he has a flag in hand, and he cries out, Lift the flag high, O, Lift the flag high, Brothers, sisters, friends and mothers, This is the flag of the Revolution, and the Police rush at him, and he slips in here and he slips out there and the boys have taken the flag, and the flag flutters and leaps from hand to hand, and with it the song is clapped out:

O lift the flag high, Lift it high like in 1857 again, And the Lakshmi of Jhansi, And the Moghul of Delhi, Will be ours again, and there is a long cry, Down the hedge, here,' and we rush down the Aloe lane, and the Police find they are too few, and they begin to throw stones at the crowd and the crowd gets angry, but the boys shut them up and sing:

O fire, O soul, Give us the spark of God-eternal, That friend to friend and friend to foe, One shall we stand before HIM.

And suddenly there is an opening in the hedge and the gas-lights and the coolies and the barricades are seen, long barricades that lie like an elephant's carcass under the starlight, and men stand by them, and be- hind them the lorries, and behind the lorries the wide- eyed lantern of the Skeffington bungalow, and down below, in Satanna's triangular field men are still working, the coolies from the city are still reaping. And all of a sudden we cry out, ' Gandhi Mahatma ki jai!', and they look at us and stop their work but they do not reply, and we shout the louder, 'Vande Mataram! Inquilab Zindabad! Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!', and the Police, seeing the crowd out of their hands, kick and twist the limbs and bang more fiercely, and Seethamma is thrown upon the cactuses and Vedamma and Kanakamma after her, and we could hear their wailings, and we run to them and pull them up, and we run down the lane and the field bunds and we come to the canal, and the women cry out, 'We cannot go! We cannot go!' and the men drag them and the Police push them in, and the pebbles slip under our feet, and saying Ganga, Jumna, Saraswathi!' we look up into the wide, starry sky, and there is something in the air resonant like the temple bell, and the bell rings on and on, and we wade through the canal and we sing, 'That friend to friend and friend to foe,' and the procession still moves on-and suddenly, by Rangamma's Coconut-garden field, from behind the waving, brown paddy harvest, there is a cry sharp and clear, then a rasping hiss as though a thousand porcupines had suddenly bristled up, and we see rising from behind the ridge, ten, twenty, thirty, forty soldiers heads down and bayonets thrust forth. We whirl in shrieks and shouts and yells, and we leap into the harvests. And a first shot is shot into the air.

And there was a shuddered silence, like the silence of a jungle after the tiger has roared over the evening river, and then, like a jungle cry of crickets and frogs and hyenas and bison and jackals, we all groaned and shrieked and sobbed, and we rushed this side to the canal-bund and that side to the Coconut-garden, and this side to the sugar-cane field and that side to the Bel-field bund, and we fell and we rose, and we crouched and we rose, and we ducked beneath the rice harvests and we rose, and we fell over stones and we rose again, over field-bunds and canal-bunds and garden-bunds did we rush, and the children held to our saris and some held to our breasts and the night-blind held to our hands; and we could hear the splash of the canal water and the trundling of the gun-carts, and from behind a tree or stone or bund, we could see before us, there, beneath the Bebbur Mound, the white city boys grouped like a plantain grove, and women round them and behind them, and the flag still flying over them. And the soldiers shouted, 'Disperse or we fire,' but the boys answered, Brothers, we are non- violent,' and the soldiers said, 'Non-violent or not, you cannot march this side of the fields,' and the boys answered, The fields are ours,' and the soldiers said, 'I say the fields are bought, you pigs'. And a peasant voice from the back says, 'It's we who have put the plough to the earth and fed her with water,' and the soldiers say, 'Hè, stop that, you village kid,' and the boys say, 'Brother, the earth is ours, and you are ours too, brown like this earth is your skin and mine,' and a soldier shouts out, 'Oh, no more of this Panchayat- we ask you again, disperse, and do not force us to fire!' Then, it is Ratna's voice that says, 'Forward, brothers, in the name of the Mahatma!', and everybody takes it up and shouts 'Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!', and marches forward. And a shower of shots suddenly bursts into the air, and we close our eyes, and when we open them again there is not a cry nor shout and the boys are still marching forward, and the soldiers are retreating, and we say, 'So that was false firing'. But the city boys will not stop, and the crowd moves on and on, and beneath the stars there is a veritable moving mound of them from the Bebbur field to the canal field.

And we say, 'Let us rush behind Bhatta's sugar-canes there they cannot catch us, for if they come to one row, we will slip into another,' and we stumble and rise again, and we hold to our children and the night- blind, and we duck and we rise again, and, our eyes fixed on the soldiers, we rush towards Bhatta's sugarcane field. And when we are there, Satamma says, 'The snakes, the snakes!' and we say, 'If our karma is that, may it be so,' and we huddle behind the sugar-cane reeds and we lie along the sugar-cane ditches, and we peep across the dark, watery fields, and the children begin to say, 'I am afraid, I am afraid,' and we say, 'Wait a moment, wait, and it will be over soon'. And, our hearts tied up in our sari fringes, we gaze beyond the dead harvest growth, and the crowd still moves forward towards the gas-lights,and by the gas-lights the coolies still bend their heads and cut the harvest, and a man is there, crying out, swearing away-their maistri. And the nearer the crowd comes to the coolies the louder is the shout 'Gandhi Mahatma ki jai! Inquilab Zindabad! Inquilab Zindabad!' And suddenly we see shadows moving in the Skeffington Coffee Estate, shadows moving like buffaloes on a harvest night, and not a voice comes from them, and we say, 'Surely, they are not our men,' and yet we say, 'The Skeffington coolies will not let us down'. And then, as the pumpkin moon is just rising over the Beda Ghats, there comes a sudden cry from the top of the Bebbur Mound, and we jump to our feet and we ask, 'Oh, what can it be, what?', and a flag is seen moving in the hands of a white-clad man, and the Police boots are crunching upon the sand, and we say somebody is running to- wards the barricades-but who? And the crowd is still by the Bebbur field, and the flag is still there, and there is a furious cry coming from the Bebbur Mound gate and a crash is heard, and we hear the coolies rushing at the barricades and they, too, have a flag in their hands and they blow a trumpet and shout out, 'Vande Mataram! Mataram Vande!', and there is an answer from the crowd below, 'Inquilab Zindabad! Inquilab Zindabad!', and between them is Rangè Gowda's Big field and the Bebbur field and the triangular field.

And of a sudden the coolies of the city stop work and at a command the lights are all put out, and there is nothing but the rising moon and a rag of cloud here and there and all the stars of night and the shining dome of the Kenchamma Temple, and the winking lantern from the Skeffington bungalow. And the Skeffington coolies, black with their white dhotis, tumble and rush down, and there is another shot in the air, and this time we see the flag of the coolies flutter as they advance towards the crouching barricades; and a white officer is there, and there is surely a horse beneath him, for he is here, he is there, he is every- where, and one of the soldiers cries out something from the barricades, and the coolies answer one and all, 'Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!', and then someone lights and Seethamma and Lakshamma and I, we go up behind the crowd, and the bullets scream through the air, like flying snakes taken fire, they wheeze and hiss and slash against the trees, or fall hissing into the canal, and Vedamma gets a bullet in the left leg, and we put her on the field-bund, and we tear up a little paddy and we lay her on it and she says, 'Rama-Rama, I'm dying-Rama-Rama, I'm dying,' and we say, 'No, it's only the leg,' but she says, 'No, no,' but we know it is well, and there is such a cry, such a lamentation from the crowd, that our hearts are squeezed like a wet cloth, and we say, 'Vedamma, Vedamma, stop here and we will get some help'. And already in the Big field men are being bandaged, and we say, 'Brother, brother, there is a woman wounded,' and somebody says, 'Ramu, go and see her'. And a Volunteer hurries torch in hand to bandage Vedamma, and we see already, two, three, four stretchers bearing away the wounded, and they say the Congress ambulance is there, that it had slipped through swamp and jungle, and the wounded would be carried to it. And we say, 'How are things going, brother?' and the Volunteer says, 'They are resisting,' and we ask, 'And women, are there some women?' and he says, 'Why, there are many'.' And you are a city boy?' we ask.-' Yes, yes, sister,' he says, and we say, 'We'll follow you,' and he says, 'Come,' and we run behind him, and the shots fall here and fall there, and in the darkness we can see a white group of men moving up, a white group of city boys, and behind them are women, and behind the women the crowd again, and the wounded shriek from this field and from that, voices of men and boys and old women, and above it all rises from the front, ranks the song: And the flame of Jatin, And the fire of Bhagath, And the love of the Mahatma in all, O, lift the flag high, Lift the flag high, This is the flag of the Revolution.

And the Skeffington coolies cry out, Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!', and the coolies of the harvest take it up and shout Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!', and we are near them and they are near us, and they say something to us and we do not understand what they mutter, and we say 'Mahatma, Mahatma, Gandhi Mahatma!', and they put their mouths to our ears and say Gandhi Mahatma ki jai!', and 'Punjab, Punjab!' But our ears are turned to the firing and we strain our eyes to see the coolies on the Mound, the coolics of the Skeffington Coffee Estate, but all we hear are shouts and shricks and yells. Then suddenly, from the Hima- vathy bend there is such a rush of more coolies that the soldiers do not know which way to turn, for the city boys are still marching up, and women are behind them, and the crowd behind the women, and there are the coolies across the barricades; and there is such joy that a wild cry of Vandè!... Mataram!...' gushes from the valley to the mountain-tops and all the moon- lit sky above us. And the white man shouts a command and all the soldiers open fire and all the soldiers charge -they come rushing towards us, their turbans trembling and their bayonets shining under the bright moon, and our men lie flat on the fields, the city boys and the women, and the soldiers dash upon us and trample over us, and bang their rifle-butts against our heads. There are cries and shrieks and moans and groans, and men fly to the left and to the right, and they howl and they yell and they fall and they rise and we rise, too, to fly, but the soldiers have seen us, and one of them rushes toward us, and we are felled and twisted, we are felled and we are kicked, we are felled and the bayonets waved over our faces--and a long time passes before we wake and we find Satamma fainted beside us, and Madamma and I, who were soaking in a ditch, crawl past her. And then there is a shot, and a fleeing man near by is shot in the chest and he falls over us, and the moon splashes on his moustached face, his peasant-blanket soaked in blood, and he slowly lets down his head, crying 'Amma, mother! Amm-Amm!' and we wipe the saliva from his mouth, and we put our mouths to his car and say, 'Narayan, Narayan,' but he is already dead. There is no more charging now, but a continuous firing comes down from the Bebbur Mound. The moon still shines and with it the winking light of the Skeffington Coffee Estate.

There is a long silence. We're in the Big field. Where is Ratna? Where is Venkateshia's wife Lakshamma? And Nose-scratching Nanjamma? And Seethamma and Vedamma and Chinnamma and all? How are you, Madamma?' I ask. Hush!' says someone in front of us, hid beneath the harvest, and as we raise our heads, we see men hid behind this ridge and that, in this field and that, and their white clothes and their tufts and braids. And there is Kanthapura, too, across the canal and the Aloe lane, and there's not a light, and the streets are milk-splashed under the moon. There's Rangamma's veranda and Nanjamma's mango-well, and Sami's courtyard with its carts, yokes on the earth and backs in the air; the dustbin is by the Main Street Square, and the Corner-House coconut-tree is dark and high. There seems to be not a beating pulse in all Kanthapura.

Now, there's the gruff voice of the white officer and the whispered counsels of the soldiers. Soon they'll begin the attack again.

The attack began not from their side but ours, for someone broke open the gas cylinders of the city lights, and they made such a roar that the officer thought it was a gun-shot, and immediately there was a charge, and the soldiers came grunting and grovelling at us, bayonets thrust forward, and shot after shot burst through the night, and we knew this time there would be no mercy, and we rose and we ran; and someone from the Bebbur Mound had run up to the barricades where there was neither soldier nor officer, and had tried to hoist the National flag, and the coolies rushed behind him, and the coolies from the Himavathy bend rushed towards them, and there was a long 'Vande Mataram!' and the soldiers, fiercer, dashed behind us, and man after man gasped and cried and fell, and those that were tying bandages to them, they, too, got bayonet thrusts in the thighs and arms and chest, and we spread over field and bund and garden, and when we came to the canal there were so many of us to wade through, that the boys said, 'Go ahead, go ahead, sisters,' and they stood there, holding hand to hand and arm to arm, one long aloe-hedge of city boys, their faces turned to the Bebbur Mound. And the soldiers rush at them, but one goes forward and says, 'Brother, we are non-violent, do not fire on innocent men,' and the white officer says, 'Stop,' and he says to the soldier, 'What does he say?' and the soldiers laugh, They say they're innocent,' and the officer says, Then ask them if they will be loyal to the Government,' and the boys ask, 'What Government?' and the officer answers, The British Government,' and the boys say,. We know only one Government and that is the Government of the Mahatma,' and the officer says, 'But ours is an Indian Government,' and he says to a soldier, Plant this flag here,' and we who are on the other side of the canal, we lie behind the bund, and we look at the flag being planted just between Satamma's boundary stone and the Bel-tree, and the moon is still there and the fields fretful with a mountain wind. And the officer says, 'Salute, and march past the flag, and you will be free,' and then he says, Come out,' and the boys cry in answer, 'Inquilab Zindabad! Inquilab Zindabad!' and the boys at the back begin,

O fire, O soul, Give us the spark of God-eternal, That friend to friend and friend to foc, One shall we stand before HIM. And the flame of Jatin, And the fire of Bhagath, And the love of the Mahatma in all, O, lift the flag high, Lift the flag high, This is the flag of the Revolution.

And suddenly a boy rushes to the flag and a host of bayonets are thrust at him, and another boy rushes up behind him, and at him the officer aims his pistol, and then others cry and shout and rush at the flag, and the parrots and the bats and the crows come screeching out of the bel-tree; and the coolies are now running down the Bebbur Mound, and there is a hand-to-hand fight, and some, frightened, fall into the canal, and others go rushing this side and that, but the city boys, they squat down, they plop on the harvests and they squat down. But someone has hit the officer and he falls, and then curses and bayonets fly, and the coolies of the Bebbur Mound have arrived, and they are holding the gas-light boxes in front of them, and some carry gas-cylinders on their heads, and they carry sickles and lathis in their hands. But a voice is heard saying, 'No violence, in the name of the Mahatma,' and we know it is Ratna's voice--but, where is she? where? And the coolies answer back, 'Mahatma Gandhi ki jai! Say, brother, Gandhi Mahatma ki jai!', and the soldiers rush towards them and fall on them, and the coolies fall on the soldiers, and the city boys cry, 'Stop, stop,' but bayonets are thrust at them too, and there is such a confusion that men grip men and men crush men and men bite men and men tear men, and moans on moans rise and groans on groans die out, while the ambu- lance men are still at work and men are bandaged, and shots after shots ring out and man after man falls like an empty sack, and the women take up the lamen- tation: 'He's gone-he's gone-he's gone, sister!', they beat their mouths and shout, 'He's gone--he's gone-he's gone, Moorthappa!', and somebody adds, 'He's gone-he's gone-he's gone, Rachanna!', and over the moans and the groans rises the sing-song lamentation, 'Oh, Ammayya, he's gone-he's gone- he's gone, Rachanna!' And men are kicked and, legs tied to hands and hands tied to legs, are they rolled into the canal, and the waters splash and yells rise up, Help, help, Ammayya!' And the coolies rush up and some shout 'Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!' and others shout back 'Vande Mataram!', and a bayonet is thrust at one and he falls, and again through the night rises the lamentation Ammayya-he's gone-he's gone-he's gone, Moorthappa,' and it whirls and laments over the canal and the sugar-cane field and the Bebbur Mound and Skeffington Coffee Estate and the mango grove of the Kenchamma Temple-and crouching, we creep back through the village lane, behind lantana and aloe and cactus, looking at the Bebbur Mound, where the Gandhi flag is still flying beneath the full-bosomed moon, and the Canal-bund beyond which three thousand men are shrieking and slaying, weeping, wounding, groaning, crawling, swooning, vomiting, bellowing, moaning, raving, gasping . . . and at the village gate there's Satamma and Nanjamma and Rachamma and Madamma, and Yenki and Nanju and Pariah Tippa and old Mota and Beadle Timmayya and Bora and Venkata, and the children are there, too, and old men from the city, and the coolies of the fields who said, 'Punjab, Punjab'. And we ask ourselves' Who will ever set foot again in this village?', and Madanna's wife Madi says, 'Even if you want to, the Police are not your uncle's sons, are they? For every house and byre is now attached.' And then more and more men crawl up, and more wounded are brought up, on shoulders and arms and stretchers are they brought up, naked, half covered, earth-covered are they brought up, with dangling legs, dangling hands and bleeding hands, and with bleeding mouths and bleeding fore- heads and backs are they brought up, city boys and peasant boys are they, young and bright as banana trunks, city men and peasant men, lean-ribbed, long- toed, with cut moustaches and long whiskers--peasant women and city women are they, widows, mothers, daughters, stepdaughters-and some speak in free voices and some in breathless sputters, and some can do no more than wallow and wail. And women walk behind them, beating their mouths and singing, 'Oh, he's gone --he's gone, Cart-Man Rudrappa; Hè, said he to his bulls, and hè, hè, said he to his cart, hè, hè, hè, said he to the wicked whip; he's gone--he's gone-he's gone, Rudrappa,' and another woman adds, 'He's gone, Potter Siddayya'.

And old Rachanna's wife Rachi can bear the sight no more, and she says, 'In the name of the goddess, I'll burn this village,' and we say, 'Nay, nay, Rachi,' but she spits once, twice, thrice towards the Bebbur Mound, and once, twice, thrice at the village gate, and she rushes towards the pariah lines, and Lingamma and Madamma and Boramma and Siddamma follow her, crying, 'To the ashes, you wretch of a village!' and they throw their bodices and their sari-fringes on the earth and they raise a bonfire beneath the tama- rind-tree, and they light this thatch and that thatch, and we cry out, 'Our houses, our houses,' and they say, 'Go, ye widows, don't ye see the dead and the dying?' and more and more men and women go this side and that and say, 'If the rice is to be lost let it be lost in the ashes,' and granary and byre and hay- lofts are lighted. And then, as the flames rise, there are shots again, and the soldiers rush towards us, and we run and run, with the cows and the bulls and the pigs and the hens bellowing and squawking about us, and bats and rats and crows and dogs squealing behind us, through Pariah Street and Potters' Street and the Weavers' Street did we rush, and slipping behind Rangamma's backyard, we dodged among tamarind and pipal and lantana and cactus, and Seethamma and Madamma and Boramma and Lingamma and I waded through the Himavathy, and Rachamma and Rachamma's child, and Ningamma and her grand- daughter and her two nephews joined us; and then more and more women and men joined us, wounds in stomachs and wounds in breasts and wounds in faces, with bullets in thighs, and bullets in the toes, bullets in the arms--men carried men, men carried wounded women and yelping children, and they laved them in the river, and they gave them water to drink and when we were twenty-five or thirty in all, one of the city boys said, 'Now we start, and we shall reach Maddur in an hour,' and we rose and woke the children, and they rose with us, and beneath the hushed arching mangoes of the road, stumbling into ruts and groping over boulders, we trudged up the Maddur Mountains, and not a roar came from the jungles and the moon and stars were bright above us.

And in Maddur there were policemen, and they, too, rushed to smite us, and we said, 'We have borne so much, let them,' and they spat and they kicked and they crushed and they banged, and then an old woman from here and a pregnant woman from there, old men, girls and children came running, Maddur women and Maddur old men, and they took us to this veranda and that, and gave us milk and coconut and banana. And they asked this about the fight and that, and of their sons who were with us, and their fathers and their husbands, and of Mota who had a scar on the right eye, and Chenna who was this-much tall, and Betel- seller Madayya, you couldn't mistake him, he was so round, and we said what we knew and we were silent over what we knew not, and they said, 'Ah, wait till our men come back, wait!' But we said the Police would not leave us alone and we'd go away but we'd leave our wounded with them.. And we took our children and our old women and our men and we marched up the Kola Pass and the Beda Hills, and, mounting over the Ghats, we slipped into the Santapur jungle-path, and through the clear, rustling, jungle night we walked down to the banks of the Cauvery. Across it was the Mysore State, and as dawn broke over the hissing river and the jungles and the moun- tains, we dipped in the holy river and rose, and men came to greet us with trumpet and bell and conch, and they marched in front of us and we marched behind them, through the footpaths and the lanes and the streets. And houses came and cattle and dung- smell and coconut shops and children and temple and all. They hung garlands on our necks, and called us the pilgrims of the Mahatma.

Then we ate and we slept, and we spake and we slept, and when they said, 'Stay here, sisters,' we said, 'We'll stay, sisters,' and we settled down in Kashipura.