Ajji says, her voice wet with pain, that she gave up her daughter to such a cruel custom and lost her at such a young age. Annaiah’s face is shaded and grey at this mention, but Ajji, for once, ignores his feelings.

Some of the lower castes, sitting right outside the Kamadeva temple, are not sure how to respond. They are all stirred up and upset by Annaiah’s tale. But how will they fight a centuries-old practice?

After a long silence, Beeri raises her voice. ‘What the oldest daughter-in-law of the headman’s house and the Kamadeva temple priest are saying are the right things. We send our daughters to serve Ooramma out of fear and with great pain. It is a penance for the sins of the upper castes. It must stop.’

She is the matriarch of the lower castes in their village and dictates how things should be done. Everyone living in the lower-caste street has gone to her for support or advice at one point or the other. They never speak about the girls at the Ooramma temple. They never go there. Once a girl goes to the temple, the family never sees her except when she dances in front of Ooramma’s pallakki during the jathre, once a year. Or at upper-caste weddings and funerals. Their families are not allowed inside the Ooramma temple and the girls are not allowed out.

Beeri has, for long, been sorrowing about it. That evening, she almost did not come to the temple as a black cat crossed her path and as everyone knows, that is bad luck. But Annaiah has always drawn her, even as a child, to the temple and she has never let anything stop her. The saraayi she drank that afternoon gives her courage and she has come. And it looks like the black cat brought her good luck after all: all her sorrows are about to end.

She has lost her sister, her aunt and so many friends to the Ooramma temple, though she herself escaped. Beeri doesn’t want her granddaughter pushed into that living naraka. She knows only too well that despite his age and waning libido, Dasegowda has been eyeing the girl.

Beeri says, ‘I appeal to Headman Puttaswamegowda to find a way of stopping this practice. Do it now. I will stand by you and so will my people. Hear me, all of you. Let us support him and save our daughters.’

Puttaswamegowda doesn’t have to raise his voice, the silence is that intense. Everyone can hear each word, crystal clear. ‘I am saying it here and now, when the whole village is present. From today, nobody will send their daughters to the Ooramma temple. Annaiah is right. It is a shameful thing that we men are responsible for. It must stop.’