‘But isn’t it a disgrace to visit them uninvited?’ she said.

‘We don’t need an invitation to go to my appucchi’s house. It is like our own house,’ he laughed. He was afraid she would resist, but she didn’t say anything more. She was lost in thought, wondering how she should behave when she met these relatives. She was definitely going to be on exhibition for them. There was nothing more difficult than being the object of everyone’s attention and scrutiny. She’d have to sit silently with her head bowed in modesty. At least that way, she would avoid seeing things. But she’d still have to hear the things they said. She consoled herself with the thought that this visit was only a way of hastening the inevitable.

Kumaresan had had good practice pedalling his bicycle with the weight of the soda bottles both in the basket in front and on the carrier at the back. After that one steep incline on the road, Saroja did not have to get off and walk anywhere else. Once he saw her smile, Kumaresan no longer felt her weight on the bicycle.

He stopped the bicycle outside a small, brick, tile-roofed house. That’s where his appucchi and ammayi lived. The house was neither within the village nor outside it. Saroja could see four similar houses a little distance away. They had tiled roofs too. All four brothers had built separate houses for themselves on the land that had been divided among them. Kumaresan was telling her all this in a whisper when his grandparents emerged from inside the house.

His appucchi was a tall, well-built man. He rushed towards Kumaresan and slapped him hard, shouting, ‘Why have you come here, you shameless dog?’

Wincing under that stinging slap, Kumaresan staggered back, but his appucchi dragged him forward and hit him several times.

‘You ungrateful dog!’ his appucchi screamed, ‘I raised you. I fed you.’

Kumaresan had not expected such a welcome. The bicycle fell down, and he moved aside, holding his hands to his battered cheeks. Saroja, terrified and weeping, hid behind him. Kumaresan appeared shrunk and powerless before his appucchi. His ammayi came running and grabbed her husband’s arm before he could hit Kumaresan again.

‘How can you hit the boy when he has come to visit us?’ she said. ‘You may have grown old, but you have no brains. Move aside! Come with me, my dear.’ And holding Kumaresan by the hand, she led him into the house.

Though Saroja wanted to leave as soon as possible, she had no choice but to stay with Kumaresan and so she followed him and his ammayi. His appucchi glared at her. Before Kumaresan could cross the threshold, his appucchi shouted from outside, ‘Ey! Don’t take her inside. Who knows what caste she belongs to! Our eldest son’s wife has been keeping a fast so that she can walk the fire pit at the temple festival. This might ruin all that. Let them stay on the veranda.’