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eleven and a half hours a day-from seven in the morning to
six-thirty in the evening-be permitted to take a one-hour lunch
break. That women‟s wages be increased from one rupee
twenty-five paisa a day to three rupees, and men‟s from two rupees
fifty paisa to four rupees fifty paisa a day. They were also
demanding that Untouchables no longer be addressed by their caste
names. They demanded not to be addressed as Achoo Parayan, or
Kelan Paravan, or Kuttan Pulayan, but just as Achoo, or Kelan or
Kuttan.
Cardamon Kings, Coffee Counts and Rubber Barons–old
boarding-school buddies–came down from their lonely, far-flung
estates and sipped chilled beer at the Sailing Club. They raised
their glasses: A rose by any other name , they said, and sniggered
to hide their rising panic.
The marchers that day were party workers, students and the
laborers themselves. Touchables and Untouchables. On their
shoulders they carried a keg of ancient anger, lit with a recent fuse.
There was an edge to this anger that was Naxalite, and new.
Through the Plymouth window, Rahel could see that the
loudest word they said was Zindabad. And that the veins stood out
in their necks when they said it. And that the arms that held the
flags and banners were knotted and hard.
Inside the Plymouth it was still and hot.
Baby Kochamma‟s fear lay rolled up on the car floor like a
damp, clammy cheroot. This was just the beginning of it. The fear
that over the years would grow to consume her. That would make
her lock her doors and windows. That would give her two hairlines
and both her mouths. Hers too, was an ancient, age-old fear. The
fear of being dispossessed.
She tried to count the green beads on her rosary but couldn‟t
concentrate. An open hand slammed against the car window.
A balled fist banged down on the burning skyblue bonnet. It
sprang open. The Plymouth looked like an angular blue animal in a
zoo asking to be fed.