Now what Bhatta had said was at the river the next morning, and Waterfall Venkamma said, 'Well done, well done! That's how it should be-this Moorthy and his city talk.' And Temple Lakshamma said that Moorthy could do what he liked in his own house but in this village there should be none of this pariah busi- ness, and Venkamma and Timmamma looked ap- provingly at Post-Office-House young Chinnamma, who said it was all untrue, for Moorthy was such a deep-voiced, God-loving person, and would do no mixing of castes. But when they saw old Narsamma, Moorthy's mother, they fell to talking of this and that, and they did not even answer her 'How are you all, sisters?' Old Narsamma went and placed the clothes- basket beneath the serpent pipal, and sat over the platform for a moment to rest. She was a pious old woman, Narsamma, tall and thin, and her big, broad ash-marks gave her such an air of ascetic holiness. She was nearing sixty-five years of age, and it was not for nothing she had borne eleven children, five of them dead; and of the remaining six, Moorthy was the only son; the rest were daughters, married here and there, one to a shanbhog across the Mysore border, another to a priest, and another one to a landowner, another to a Revenue Inspector, and the last one to a court clerk-all well married, with large families of brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, and all of them blessed with children except Sata, the second daughter who never had a child in spite of all her money and pilgrimages. But it was Moorthy, the youngest, whom Narsamma loved the most-the youngest is always the holy bull, they say, don't they?-and she thought that he, with his looks and his intelligence, should one day be a Sub-Collector at least. And why not? He was so brilliant in school, and he was so deferential in his ways. And they began to ask for his horoscope when he was hardly sixteen. But Moorthy would have none of this. For, as every- body knew, one day he had seen a vision, a vision of the Mahatma, mighty and God-beaming, and stealing between the Volunteers Moorthy had got on to the platform, and he stood by the Mahatma, and the very skin of the Mahatma seemed to send out a mellowed force and love, and he stood by one of the fanners and whispered, Brother, the next is me'. And the fanner fanned on and the Mahatma spoke on, and Moorthy looked from the audience to the Mahatma and from the Mahatma to the audience, and he said to himself, 'There is in it something of the silent communion of the ancient books,' and he turned again to the fanner and said, Brother, only when you are tired?' And the fanner said, 'Take it, brother,' and Moorthy stood by the Mahatma and the fan went once this side and once that, and beneath the fan came a voice deep and stirring that went out to the hearts of those men and women and came streaming back through the thrumming air, and went through the fan and the hair and the nails of Moorthy into the very limbs, and Moorthy shivered, and then there came flooding up in rings and ripples, 'Gandhi Mahatma ki jai!'-' Jai Mahatma!', and as it broke against Moorthy, the fan went faster and faster over the head of the Mahatma, and perspiration flowed down the forehead of Moorthy. Then came a dulled silence of his blood and he said to himself 'Let me listen,' and he listened, and in listening heard, 'There is but one force in life and that is Truth, and there is but one love in life and that is the love of mankind, and there is but one God in life and that is the God of all,' and then came a shiver and he turned to the one behind him and said Brother,' and the man took the fan from Moorthy and Moorthy trembled back and sought his way out to the open, but there were men all about him and behind the men women, and behind them carts and bullocks and behind them the river, and Moorthy said to himself 'No, I cannot go'. And he sat beside the platform, his head in his hands, and tears came to his eyes, and he wept softly, and with weeping came peace. He stood up, and he saw there, by the legs of the chair, the sandal and the foot of the Mahatma, and he said to himself, That is my place'. And suddenly there was a clapping of hands and shoutings of 'Vande Mataram, Gandhi Mahatma ki jai!' and he put forth his hands and cried Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!' And as there was fever and confusion about the Mahatma, he jumped on to the platform, slipped between this person and that and fell at the fect of the Mahatma, saying, 'I am your slave'. The Mahatma lifted him up and, before them all, he said, 'What can I do for you, my son?' and Moorthy said, like Hanuman to Rama, 'Any command,' and the Mahatma said, 'I give no commands save to seek Truth,' and Moorthy said, 'I am ignorant, how can I seek Truth?' and the people around him were trying to hush him and to take him away, but the Mahatma said, 'You wear foreign cloth, my son'. It will go, Mahatmaji. You perhaps go to foreign Uni- versities. It will go, Mahatmaji.'-You can help your country by going and working among the dumb millions of the villages.'-So be it, Mahatmaji,' and the Mahatma patted him on the back, and through that touch was revealed to him as the day is revealed to the night the sheathless being of his soul; and Moorthy drew away, and as it were with shut eyes groped his way through the crowd to the bank of the river. And he wandered about the fields and the lanes and the canals and when he came back to the College that evening, he threw his foreign clothes and his foreign books into the bonfire, and walked out, a Gandhi's man.
That's how it was that he returned to our village in the middle of the last harvest, and when Narsamma saw him coming down the Karwar Road, his bundle in his hand, she cried out, 'What is it, my son, that brings you here?' and he told her of the Mahatma he had seen and of the schools that were corrupt, and Narsamma fell upon the floor and began to weep and to cry, saying that she would never look upon his face again. But, after all, she let him stay and she was glad to have him at home. She said, 'You need not be a Sub-Collector or an Assistant Commissioner. You can look after your hereditary lands and have your two meals a day. . . .' And the very next week there turned up Santapur Patwari Venkataramayya to offer his third daughter in marriage; but Waterfall Venkam- ma said that her daughter's horoscope went incompar- ably better, and Nose-scratching Nanjamma said her granddaughter Sita was only seven years old but she should be married soon, if Moorthy would only say, 'Yes, aunt! But Moorthy simply said he did not wish to marry, and when Narsamma said, 'You are a grown-up boy, Moorthy, and if you don't marry now, you will take to evil ways,' Moorthy, deferential as ever, said, 'No, mother. I swear upon my holy thread I shall keep pure and noble and will bring no evil to my ancestors.' But every time there was a horoscope moving about, Narsamma always had it compared with Moorthy's, for one day he would surely marry. He was the only son and she would have liked to close her eyes with an ever-lit house and sons and grandsons that would offer unfailing oblations to the manes. And when Moorthy began this Gandhi affair she was glad everybody talked to him and came to see him, and she hoped this way Maddur Coffee-Planter Venkatanara- yana himself would offer his daughter in marriage. After all Moorthy, too, had twenty-seven acres of wet land and fifty-four acres of dry land, and a cardamom garden, and a twenty-five-tree mango-grove, and a small coffee plantation. Surely Venkatanarayana would offer his daughter in marriage! And there would be such a grand marriage, with city band and motor cars and such an army of cooks, and there would be such a royal procession in the very heart of the city, with fire display and all. A real grand marriage, I tell you! And from the day she saw this, as if in a vision, she would neither sleep nor sit, and she spoke secretly of it to Post-Office-House Chinnamma, who was Maddur Coffee-Planter Venkatanarayana's cousin and Post- Office Chinnamma said, 'Of course I shall speak to Venku when he comes here next,' and she spoke of it to Puttamma whose sister was Coffee-Planter Venkata- narayana's second wife. And the whisper went from house to house that Moorthy was to be married to the second daughter of Venkatanarayana. Why,' said Temple Lakshamma, 'why, even the marriage-day has been fixed-it will be in the dark half of the Sravan month,' and they all said that soon the village would begin to prepare vermicelli and rice-cakes and happa- lams, and they all said, 'This will be a fine marriage and we shall feast as we have never done think of it, a coffee-planter!'
But Waterfall Venkamma knew better. This good- for-nothing fellow, who could not even pass an examination and who has now taken to this pariah business--why, he could beg, cringe, and prostrate himself before the coffee-planter but he would not even have the dirt out of the body of his second daughter. 'Ah, well,' she said, if you want to know, I shall go straight to Narsamma herself and find it out'; and straight she went, her sari falling down her shaven head, and she walked fast, and when she came to Moorthy's house she planted herself straight before his mother and cried, Narsamma, I have come to ask you something. You know you said you did not want my daughter for your son. I am glad of it now and I say to myself, thank heavens I didn't tie my daughter to the neck of a pariah-mixer. Ah, well! I have horoscopes now from Bangalore and Mysore-with real B.A.s and M.A.s, and you will see a decent Assistant Commissioner take my daughter in marriage. But what I have come for is this: Tell me, Narsamma, it seems your son wants to marry Coffee-Planter Venkatanara- yana's daughter. He will do nothing of the kind. God has not given me a tongue for nothing. And the first time your honoured guests come out after the marriage papers are drawn, here shall I be in this corner, and I shall tumble upon them, I a shaven widow, and I shall offer them a jolly good blessing-ceremony in the choicest of words. Do you hear that, Narsamma? Well, let him take care, Moorthy. And our community will not be corrupted by such dirt-gobbling curs. Pariah! pariah! She spat at the door and walked away, to the consternation of Narsamma, and the whole village said Venkamma was not Waterfall Venkamma for nothing, and that Narsamma should not take it to heart. And when Narsamma saw her at the river the next day, Venkamma was as jolly as ever and she said she had a bad tongue and that one day she would ask Carpenter Kenchayya to saw it out, and Narsamma said, 'Oh, it does not matter, sister,' and they all talked together happily and they came back home, their baskets on their heads, content. But on this particular morning Venkamma was be- ginning to boil again. As Narsamma came forward, and, placing her basket on the sands, began to unroll her bundle, Venkamma plants herself like a banana- trunk in front of her and cries out:
'Hè Narsamma. Do you know what your son is bringing to this village?'
'What?' trembles Narsamma.
'What? It's for nothing you put forth into the world eleven children, if you do not even know what your very beloved son is always doing. I will tell you what he is doing: he is mixing with the pariahs like a veritable Mohomedan, and the Swami has sent word through Bhatta to say that the whole of Kanthapura will be excommunicated. Do you hear that? A fine thing, too, it is, you with your broad ash-marks and your queer son and his ways. If he does not stop mixing with the pariahs, this very hand-do you hear?-this very hand will give him two slaps on his checks and one on the buttocks and send him screaming to his friends, the pariahs. Do you hear? And I have daughters to marry, and so has everybody else. If you have none, so much the worse for you. And we shall stand none of this pariah affair. If he wants to go and sleep with these pariah whores, he can do so by all means. But let him not call himself a brahmin, do you hear? And tell him, the next time I see him in the Brahmin Street, he will get a jolly fine marriage- welcome with my broom-stick.'
'Oh! Calm yourself, Venkamma,' says Post-Office- House Chinnamma, the second daughter-in-law of the housc. After all it is not for a woman to hold out in such speech. And Bhatta has not said the village is to be excommunicated. It shall be only if we mix with the pariahs...?
'Oh, go away! What do you know of the outside world, you kitchen queen? I know. Bhatta met me yesterday and he told me all about it. The Swami has said that if this pariah business is not stopped immedi- ately the village will be excommunicated.' 'When, Venkamma, when?' trembled Narsamma.
'Ex-comm-u-ni-cation.'
'I told you, it was yesterday. I saw Bhatta. And he told me this. If not, how should I know?'
'Why, Venkamma,' says Chinnamma, 'it was I who told it to you this morning!'
Ah, my daughter of daughters, you think the cock only crows because of you, young woman. I listened to you as though I didn't know of it. But to tell you the truth I knew it long ago....
'Truly, excommunication?' asks Narsamma. 'Truly?' and a tear big as a thumb ran down her pouchy cheeks. 'No, not my son. No. Never will my son bring dishonour to his family. He has promised me. No dishonour to his family. Never. Never.' And as she began to unroll her bundle, something came up from her stomach to her throat, and she burst out sobbing. She sat herself down and she began to sob. Meanwhile Rangamma and her mother came along to the river. And they tried to console her. But no. Narsamma went on shivering and sobbing. 'Oh, Moorthy, you must never do that! Never!' And Rangamma and young Chinnamma said Moorthy was a fine fellow and he did nothing wrong, and if the Swami wanted to excommunicate him they would go to the city themselves and have the excommunica- tion taken away. But Narsamma would not listen. 'Oh, Moorthy, if your departed father was alive what would he think of you, my son, my son, my son?...' And she hastily entered the river and took a hurried bath, and just wetting her clothes, she said she was going home. But Rangamma said, 'Wait, aunt, I'm coming with you,' and they walked by the river-path and over the field-bunds and by the mango-grove, and at every step Narsamma cried out that this was a sin and that was a sin, and she began to weep and to beat her breasts; but Rangamma said nothing was the matter and that, when Moorthy came from town, everything would be settled; but Narsamma would have nothing of it. Oh, they'll excommunicate us- they'll excommunicate us, the Swami will excommunicate us,' she said, and she rolled on the floor of her house while Rangamma stood by the door, helpless as a calf.
