‘Who did this to you? Tell me! Who hit you?’

The little girl lowers her eyes. Two words escape.

‘The schoolmaster.’

Smita’s face is dark red. The vein in her neck is swollen with anger – Lalita is terrified by the small, bulging vein. It frightens her.

Her mother is usually so calm. Smita catches hold of the child and shakes her. Her small, naked body trembles like a twig.

‘Why? What did you do? Did you disobey?!’

Smita explodes with rage: her daughter has been disobedient, on the very first day of school! The schoolmaster will not take her back, for sure, all her hopes have vanished, all her effort for nothing! She knows what this means: the latrines, the slime, other people’s shit. The basket, that cursed basket from which she had so wanted to save her.

Smita has never shown violence, she has never hit another person, but suddenly she feels an uncontrollable burst of rage. A new sensation that fills her whole body, a tide that breaches the dam of reason and engulfs her. She slaps the child. Lalita huddles against the blows, she protects her face with her hands, as best she can.

Nagarajan is on his way home from the fields when he hears the cries from the yard. He hurries back. He places himself between his wife and his daughter.

‘Smita! Stop!’

He manages to push her away and takes the child in his arms. She is racked with sobs. He discovers the marks on her back, the stripes and the split skin. He holds her tight against him.

She has disobeyed the Brahmin, yells Smita. Nagarajan looks into his daughter’s face, holding her still.

‘Is this true?’

After a moment’s silence, Lalita mumbles a phrase that stings them both like a sharp slap.

‘He wanted me to sweep the classroom.’

Smita stands frozen. Lalita spoke the words so low, she isn’t even sure she heard them correctly.

‘What did you say?’ she whispers.

‘He wanted me to sweep up, in front of the others. I said no.’