But when the marriage day draws near, she sends her elder daughter to every house, saying, ‘Tell them you shall not light your kitchen fires for one whole week, and, if you like, for ten whole days. I am not marrying my daughter to Advocate Seenappa for nothing.’ And everybody asks, ‘I think it’s an advocate your sister is marrying?’ and Venkamma’s elder daughter says, ‘Yes, our Ranga is the most fortunate of us all; his father owns three villages and a coconut garden, and a small coffee plantation in Mysore, and their family is called the “bell people”, as his grandfather distributed holy bells to every guest that stayed with them.’ And Satamma says, ‘My daughter had not that luck,’ and Nanjamma says, ‘My daughter hadn’t that luck either.’ But on the first day, as the bridegrooms’ procession came along, and we all stood by the village gate, with coconuts and kumkum water to welcome him, what should we see but a middle-aged man, with two fallen teeth and a big twisted moustache. But Venkamma said he was only twenty- five, and he had married at seventeen, and his elder daughter was only seven years old, but we all knew that it came out of Venkamma’s head. But Bhatta said he was only about thirty, and that he earned at least three hundred rupees a month; that he had sixty acres of wet land and two hundred acres of dry land, and that his sisters wore half-seer gold belts and diamond earrings and Dharmawar saris, and that they gave the bride a full-seer gold belt; and it was said they would give us a French sovereign each, and indeed every woman of Kanthapura was given a French sovereign. And what a party the marriage was, with jokes and feasts and festive lights, and we all said, ‘This Bhatta and Venkamma are not so wicked after all,’ and Bhatta said to Venkamma, ‘Let everybody be well satisfied,’ and Venkamma said, ‘So they shall be!’ and every Pariah and cur in Kanthapura was satisfied. Only Moorthy wandered by the river all day long, and when dusk fell and evening came he stole back home, hurried over the meal that Rangamma served, spread his bedding and laid himself down, thinking, how, how is one an outcaste?
10
Kartik has come to Kanthapura, sisters — Kartik has come with the glow of lights and the unpressed footstep of the wandering gods; white lights from clay trays and red lights from copper stands, and diamond lights that glow from the bowers of entrance leaves; lights that glow from banana trunks and mango twigs, yellow light behind white leaves, and green light behind yellow leaves, and white light behind green leaves; and night curls through the shadowed streets, and hissing over bellied boulders and hurrying through dallying drains, night curls through the Brahmin street and the Pariah street and the Potters’ street and the Weavers’ street and flapping through the mango grove, hangs clawed for one moment to the giant pipal, and then shooting across the broken fields, dies quietly into the river — and gods walk by lighted streets, blue gods and quiet gods and bright-eyed gods, and even as they walk in transparent flesh the dust gently sinks back to the earth, and many a child in Kanthapura sits late into the night to see the crown of this god and that god, and how many a god has chariots with steeds white as foam and queens so bright that the eyes shut themselves in fear lest they be blinded. Kartik is a month of the gods, and as the gods pass by the Potters’ street and the Weavers’ street, lights are lit to see them pass by. Kartik is a month of lights, sisters, and in Kanthapura when the dusk falls, children rush to the sanctum flame and the kitchen fire, and with broom grass and fuel chips and coconut rind they peel out fire and light clay pots and copper candelabras and glass lamps. Children light them all, so that when darkness hangs drooping down the eaves, gods may be seen passing by, blue gods and quiet gods and bright-eyed gods. And as they pass by, the dust sinks back into the earth, and night curls again through the shadows of the streets. Oh! have you seen the gods, sister?
Then when the night is on this side of the day, and the Kartik lights have died down, a child wakes up here and begins to cry and a cough is heard there, and in Suryanarayana’s house a lantern is seen in the courtyard, and the beat of feet is heard here and the hushed voices of men and women are heard there. Then there is a fuss and a flutter in Rangamma’s house, and everyone rubs his eyes and asks, ‘Sister, who is dying? Sister, who is dying?’ and Nanjamma says to her neighbour Ratnamma, ‘And old Ramakrishnayya? We saw him only yesterday evening at the river, and he looked so hale and healthy,’ and Postmaster Suryanarayana’s wife Satamma says, ‘No, surely it is the heart trouble of Rangamma,’ and then comes the roar of Waterfall Venkamma, ‘Ah, you will eat blood and mud I said, you widow, and here you are!’; and Pandit Venkateshia’s daughter-in-law Lakshmi takes her lantern and rushes to Venkamma and says, ‘And what is it, Venkamma?’—’Oh, daughter of the mother-in-law, what is it but that this Pariah-polluter has had royal visits?’—’But what is it, Venkamma, what?’—’Ah, you are a nice one, too, and three legs of a bedstead plus one makes four, does it or does it not, my daughter?’ And seeing Timmamma and Satamma she says, ‘Oh, don’t you see the policeman at the steps?’ and Timmamma swings the lantern, and beneath the bulging veranda stones is seen the gaunt figure of a policeman, and one by one as the men rise up and gather in the Post-office-house courtyard, the children wake up and rush to the hanging lanterns, broom grass and cattle grass in hand, and our Seenu says, ‘I’ll go,’ and as he gathers his shawl and goes to Rangamma’s door the policeman says he has no permission to let anyone in, and Seetharam comes along and Doré and Ramanna and the elders, and everybody gathers in the courtyard half covered and half awake, while from this lane and that lane rises the thin dust of Kartik lights re-lit.
And there is noise in this part of Rangamma’s house and that, and there comes the regular cry of Rangamma’s mother: ‘Oh, sinners, sinners, to have this in our old age!’ and Ramakrishnayya comes and spits across the courtyard and behind him comes Rangamma, a shawl thrown over her shoulders, and then there is seen a light in the front room and Surappa says, ‘We cannot see anything from here — come let us go up to Sami’s,’ and we all rush up there and standing on the veranda we see what is happening in Moorthy’s room. Over against the cracked wall Moorthy is standing, a bright light falling on his tight-lipped face, and the police inspector, a short, round man, is standing beside him, a notebook in his hand. In the middle of the room is a heap of books and charkas and cotton and folded cloth, and policemen in uniform are turning them this side and that, and trunks are laid open and boxes are slit through, and sometimes there is laughter. The voice of the police inspector is not heard. But now and again we see Moorthy’s head nodding — he merely nods and nods and seems to smile at nothing.