But she cannot go back. She has taken the money from under the Brahmin’s rice jar, she cannot turn back time. She must throw herself body and soul into this journey that will take her far from here, or perhaps nowhere. She is not afraid of death, or even of suffering – she fears nothing for herself, or very little. But for Lalita, she is scared of everything. She reassures herself by repeating, over and over: my daughter is so strong. She knew it the day she was born. The child had bitten the village’s birth attendant, during her post-natal examination. He had laughed – the tiny, toothless mouth had left a minuscule mark on his hand. She’s a tough character! he said. This six-year-old Dalit girl was barely taller than her schoolmaster’s stool, and she had said ‘no’ to the Brahmin. In the middle of the classroom, she had looked him in the eyes and she had told him, ‘No.’ Courage is not given solely to those who are well born. The thought gives Smita strength. No, she will not condemn Lalita to clear filth, she will not deliver her into that cursed dharma.

She bends over her daughter. The sleep of a child is a miraculous thing, she thinks. Lalita looks so peaceful, she feels guilty for rousing her. Her features are relaxed, regular, adorable. When she sleeps, she seems younger, almost still a baby. Smita wishes she didn’t have to wake her in the dark and run away. The child knows nothing about her mother’s plans; she does not know that tonight she has seen her father for the last time. Smita envies her innocence. She has long since lost that escape into sleep. Her nights offer nothing but a bottomless abyss, dreams as dark as the filth she cleans. Perhaps it will be different down there, in the south?

Lalita clutches her only doll tight against her, a present for her fifth birthday: a little ‘Bandit Queen’, Phoolan Devi herself, with her red bandanna. Smita has often told her the story of the lower-caste woman, married at the age of eleven and famous for rebelling against her fate. As the leader of a band of dacoits, she defended oppressed peoples, and attacked wealthy landowners who raped lower-caste girls on their land. She took from the rich to give to the poor, and was a heroine of the people, considered by many to be an avatar of the war-goddess Durga. Accused of forty-eight murders, she was arrested, imprisoned, then eventually freed and elected to parliament, before being assassinated by three masked men, in the middle of the street. Lalita loved her doll. All the little girls here loved Phoolan Devi. Her doll was sold on all the markets.

Lalita.

Wake up.

Come!

The child wakes from a dream known to no one but herself. She stares at her mother through sleep-filled eyes.

Don’t make a sound.

Get dressed.

Quickly.