Dharamsi whispered to his assistant to take the three to his farm.
Throughout the day, at intervals, they were flogged as they hung naked by their ankles from the branches of a banyan tree. Drifting in and out of consciousness, their screams grew faint. Thakur Dharamsi’s little grandchildren were kept indoors. “Do your lessons,” he told them. “Read your books, or play with your toys. The nice new train set I bought you.”
“But it’s a holiday,” they pleaded. “We want to play outside.”
“Not today. Some bad men are outside.” He shooed them away from the rear windows.
In the distance, in the far field, his men urinated on the three inverted faces. Semiconscious, the parched mouths were grateful for the moisture, licking the trickle with feeble urgency. Thakur Dharamsi warned his employees that for the time being the news should not spread, especially not in the downstream settlement. That might disrupt the voting and force the election commission to countermand the results, wasting weeks of work.
In the evening, after the ballot boxes were taken away, burning coals were held to the three men’s genitals, then stuffed into their mouths. Their screams were heard through the village until their lips and tongues melted away. The still, silent bodies were taken down from the tree. When they began to stir, the ropes were transferred from their ankles to their necks, and the three were hanged. The bodies were displayed in the village square.
Thakur Dharamsi’s goondas, freed now from their election duties, were turned loose upon the lower castes. “I want those achhoot jatis to learn a lesson,” he said, distributing liquor to his men before their next assignment. “I want it to be like the old days, when there was respect and discipline and order in our society. And keep an eye on that Chamaar-tailor’s house, make sure no one gets away.”
The goondas began working their way towards the untouchable quarter. They beat up individuals at random in the streets, stripped some women, raped others, burned a few huts. News of the rampage soon spread. People hid, waiting for the storm to blow over.
“Good,” said Thakur Dharamsi, as night fell and reports reached him of his men’s success. “I think they will remember this for a long time.” He ordered that the bodies of the two nameless individuals should be left by the river bank, to be reclaimed by their relations. “My heart is soft towards those two families, whoever they are,” he said. “They have suffered enough. Let them mourn their sons and cremate them.”
That was the end of the punishment, but not for Narayan’s family. “He does not deserve a proper cremation,” said Thakur Dharamsi. “And the father is more to blame than the son. His arrogance went against everything we hold sacred.” What the ages had put together, Dukhi had dared to break asunder; he had turned cobblers into tailors, distorting society’s timeless balance. Crossing the line of caste had to be punished with the utmost severity, said the Thakur.
“Catch them all — the parents, wife, children,” he told his men. “See that no one escapes.”
As the goondas broke into Narayan’s house, Amba, Pyari, Savitri, and Padma screamed from the porch to leave their friends alone. “Why are you harassing them? They have done nothing wrong!”
The women’s families pulled them back, terrified for them. Their neighbours did not dare to even look outside, cowering in their huts in shame and fear, praying that the night would pass quickly, without the violence swallowing any more innocents. When Chhotu and Dayaram tried to sneak away for help to the district thanedar, they were chased down and knifed.
Dukhi, Roopa, Radha, and the daughters were bound and dragged into the main room. “Two are missing,” said Thakur Dharamsi. “Son and grandson.” Someone checked around, and informed him that they were living in town. “Well, never mind, these five will do.”
The mutilated body was brought in and set before the captives. The room was dark. Thakur Dharamsi sent for a lamp so the family could see.
The light tore away the benevolent cloak of darkness. The naked corpse’s face was a burnt and broken blur. Only by the red birthmark on his chest could they recognize Narayan.
A long howl broke from Radha. But the sound of grief soon mingled with the family’s death agony; the house was set alight. The first flames licked at the bound flesh. The dry winds, furiously fanning the fire, showed the only spark of mercy during this night. The blaze swiftly enfolded all six of them.
By the time Ishvar and Omprakash heard the news in town, the ashes had cooled, and the charred bodies were broken and dispersed into the river. Mumtaz Chachi held Omprakash close to her while Ashraf Chacha accompanied Ishvar to the police station to register a First Information Report.
The sub-inspector, suffering from an earache, kept poking around inside with his little finger. He found it hard to concentrate. “What name? Spell it again. Slowly.”
To ingratiate themselves with the figure of authority, Ashraf advised him on a home remedy, although he was seething with anger and wanted to slap the fellow across his face to make him attend. “Warm olive oil will give you relief,” he said. “My mother used to put it for me.”
“Really? How much? Two or three drops?”
Then, with great reluctance, the police went to the house to verify the allegations in the First Information Report. They reported that nothing was found to support charges of arson and murder.
The sub-inspector was cross with Ishvar. “What kind of rascality is this? Trying to fill up the F.I.R. with lies? You filthy achhoot castes are always out to make trouble! Get out before we charge you with public mischief!”
Too stunned to speak, Ishvar looked at Ashraf, who tried to intervene. The sub-inspector cut him off rudely: “This matter doesn’t concern your community. We don’t interfere when you Muslims and your mullahs discuss problems in your community, do we?”
For the next two days, Ashraf kept the shop closed, crushed by the helplessness he felt. Mumtaz and he did not dare console Omprakash or Ishvar — what words were there for such a loss, and for an injustice so immense? The best they could do was weep with them.
On the third day, Ishvar asked him to open up the shop, and they began sewing again.
“I will gather a small army of Chamaars, provide them with weapons, then march to the landlords’ houses,” said Omprakash, his sewing-machine racing. “It will be easy to find enough men. We’ll do it like the Naxalites.” Head bent over his work, he described for Ishvar and Ashraf Chacha the strategies employed by the peasant uprisings in the northeast. “At the end of it we’ll cut off their heads and put them on spikes in the marketplace. Their kind will never dare to oppress our community again.”
Ishvar let him entertain his thoughts of revenge. His own first impulse had been the same; how could he blame his nephew? The hands were easy to divert with sewing, but the tormented mind was difficult to free from turmoil. “Tell me, Om, how do you know so much of this?”
“I read about it in newspapers. But isn’t it common sense? In every low-caste family there is someone mistreated by zamindars. They will be eager to take revenge, for sure. We’ll slaughter the Thakurs and their goondas. And those police devils.”
“And afterwards, what?” asked Ishvar gently, when he felt it was time for his nephew to turn his thoughts away from death, towards life. “They will take you to court and hang you.”
“I don’t care. I would be dead anyway if I was living with my parents, instead of safely in this shop.”
“Om, my child,” said Ashraf. “Vengeance should not be our concern. The murderers will be punished. Inshallah, in this world or the next. Maybe they already have, who knows?”
“Yes, Chachaji, who knows?” echoed Omprakash sarcastically and went to bed.
Since that terrible night six months ago, Ishvar had given up their lodging in the rooming house, at Ashraf’s insistence. There was plenty of space in the house, he claimed, now that his daughters had all married and left. He partitioned the room over the shop — one side for Mumtaz and himself, the other for Ishvar and his nephew.
They heard Omprakash moving around upstairs, getting ready for bed. Mumtaz sat at the back of the house, praying. “This revenge talk is okay if it remains talk,” said Ishvar. “But what if he goes back to the village, does something foolish.”
They fretted and agonized for hours over the boy’s future, then ascended the stairs to retire for the night. Ashraf followed Ishvar around the partition where Omprakash lay sleeping, and they stood together for a while, watching him.
“Poor child,” whispered Ashraf. “So much he has suffered. How can we help him?”
