The youngsters look at them, impatient. In the towns people are speaking only English and Hindi, they explain. Annavru himself told us we need to fight for Kannada. Don’t you remember, we all went in our carts and saw him? The youngsters refer to Rajkumar as Annavru. They should learn from him how to behave, the older folk say. They should be like Rajkumar in the old film Bangarada Manushya, not like his rakshasa performance as Hiranya in his latest movie, Bhakta Prahlada.

The youngsters get restive at these homilies. No point trying to convince these oldies who don’t care about anything but their beedis and coffee. Talk turns to panchayati raj, the pet project of Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde. Or we can talk of his minister, Neer Saheb. No no, that’s not his real name, we just call him that because he has dug those new borewells all over the place. He’s actually Abdul Nazir Saheb.

The youngsters explain in painstaking detail what they have understood of the panchayati raj system. The cantankerous old men object to that also. They say: our village is perfectly fine, ruled by Puttaswamegowda. What is the need for this panchayati rajya?

Puttaswamegowda, though, is in favour of the new system. One person in charge will become just like a gumma, controlling everyone and making them bend to his whim, he says. ‘I don’t want to be that. Neer Saheb is right – at least five people should decide what is to be done in a village.’

Annaiah peaceably listens to all the pros and cons. He smiles, slugs some more saraayi and does not comment on this.

But he does intervene in the discussion on lower-caste girls being left to the Ooramma temple. Puttaswamegowda’s mother Gowra used to talk about how it saddened her and the son wants to see if something can be done about it. He has refused to follow the practice of the headman’s house initiating new girls into the temple and has always felt a distaste about even going to the Ooramma temple because of their soliciting presence.

Thimmakka, who is present at the storytelling that day along with Chandru, immediately raises her voice to support him. Ajji too nods furiously. And, before they can discuss it further, Annaiah firmly and clearly says that the practice is extremely cruel and must stop immediately.

The villagers are bewildered. This practice has been there from as far back as they can remember. Many of them are uncomfortably aware that they first learnt of sex from the girls at the Ooramma temple. They don’t know if it should be stopped. Also, that temple is under the guidance of Dasegowda, and they don’t know if Annaiah has any right to interfere there.

Annaiah sees the doubt in their faces and falls back on what he does best: ‘I will tell you all another story of our Ooramma, which Dasegowda didn’t tell you,’ he says.