Untouchable

Rakha arrives with food and the family eats. Bakha loses his appetite as he remembers that they are eating food that the upper castes consider garbage. He excuses himself and says he is going to the wedding of Ram Charan's sister. He has not actually been invited, and does not know "what had made him decide so suddenly on such an extraordinary adventure" (86). He is hiding the knowledge from himself that he wants to see Ram Charan's sister one last time before she is given to another man. As children, he and his friend's sister had pretended to be married as a game. He remembers that as they had grown older, he had found her beautiful, and had begun to have sexual thoughts about her.

Bakha finds Chota outside of Ram Charan's home. They watch the wedding crowd but are not allowed to join it. Chota calls to Ram Charan, who leaves the wedding to bring them candied plums. They walk into the nearby hills together and Bakha enjoys the solitude. He remembers playing games in the hills as a child, and mourns the loss of his free time, now that he spends his days sweeping and begging. He reaches the shore of a pond, lies down, and sleeps. Chota wakes him by tickling his nose with a piece of straw. When he offers Bakha a sugar plum, Bakha tells him to throw it. He feels as if he is an Untouchable even to his friends. He tells them about what happened to Sohini, and the woman who threw the bread at him. They agree to go play hockey to forget about it. First, they need to go home. As they walk, he thinks about the terrible beating that he and Chota could give to the man who had slapped him, but he knows that it would get him in trouble, and would not change the situation of the Untouchables.

He goes to Charat Singh's house. Singh greets him and invites him into his home. Singh pours tea for him and allows Bakha to touch some of his possessions. Bakha is stunned at the informality the hockey player is showing to an Untouchable: "Such kindness from one of the most important men about the regiment!" (109) he thinks. Singh gives Bakha a hockey stick that is almost new. He tells him to hide it under his coat and not to tell anyone where he got it, then they say good-bye to each other. Bakha walks through the streets, grateful for Singh's gift, but sad that he cannot tell anyone about it.

He finds the two wealthy boys from earlier in the day. The elder of the two has also received a new hockey stick from Charat Singh, which makes Bakha jealous. Chota and Ram Charan arrive with other boys from the 31st Punjabis team. He has not told them that Bakha is an Untouchable. The game begins and Bakha scores a goal. The opposing goalkeeper angrily hits Bakha's legs with his stick. Chota, Ram Charan, and two other boys jump on him and soon the two teams are fighting and throwing rocks at each other. Ram Charan throws a rock that hits the younger of the two wealthy boys in the head and he falls, bleeding. Bakha lifts and carries him to his mother, who recognizes him as a street sweeper. She screams that he has polluted her son. Bakha leaves and goes home.

At home, his father yells at him for not being there for the afternoon's work. Then Bakha's father throws him out of the house and tells him not to come back. Bakha leaves and runs to the outskirts of the outcastes' colony, where he watches men enter and exit mud houses. He has been kicked out of his house before, and knows that his father will not stay angry for long. But he is "utterly given up to despair" (121).