Even his friends, who were his most ardent fans, felt there was an air of madness to his speech that day. It was true that he went a bit over the top, but it had been so long since he had thundered away like that! For instance, there was no need for him to touch upon the issues of the manual scavengers. Nevertheless, he declared that if the municipality continued to alienate the scavengers, Chairman M. C. Joseph might lose the upcoming election and give up his chair to Comrade Madasami. Many felt that he need not have named names when he spoke of the atrocities perpetrated by business owners. He claimed to have information about the secret warehouses owned by a hundred merchants and demanded to know if the police department was ready to investigate. He sounded a warning to Nehruji, who, he said, gave everyone the impression he was a socialist but was in fact in cahoots with the right wing. Nehruji’s downfall was imminent, he said. When he asked any Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers who might be present at the rally to take careful notes of his last point and pass it along to their superiors, the crowd erupted in applause. I was one of the people who listened to the entirety of his speech that day, and I remember the words “death knell” coming up quite often.

Dhamu’s day had indeed returned.

He was in the golden period of his life. He was amazed by how fast the money poured in once he took over the cigarette agency. When the agency was transferred to his name, he heard that a few betel merchants—friends of his, in fact—were muttering behind his back. Indeed, he expected that he would be criticized for turning on Khader, that people would say he did it out of pure self-interest. But the arrest made him a hero who had exposed the black market. So all the grumbles and murmurs faded away.

Celebrations in Dhamu’s honor were held in various locations, and the Travancore Nesan covered these events in depth. Many people started to say that Dhamu might run in the upcoming municipal elections and that he could win the chairmanship easily. It was also rumored that Madasami might contest in the elections at the ward level.

13

13.

It was only ten o’clock in the morning, but it was already terribly hot. Women had barely stepped out of their houses before all their painstaking efforts to look beautiful were ruined; they wilted as they might have at the end of a hard workday.

The morning bell had already rung at the local schools and colleges, so the streets found a brief respite from the usual hustle and bustle. A temporary desolation had crept over the town. Boys and girls who were late for school were rushing as fast as they could. The girls looked like they might burst into tears.