There is a huge stir among the villagers and some of the older men inside want to get up and oppose. Annaiah’s stories are fine, but what about belief? What about customs? What about necessity? Who will accept those girls now?

Puttaswamegowda lifts his hand for silence. ‘I will give 30 per cent of whatever we harvest from the lands of the headman’s house to set up a shelter in my mother Gowra’s name in the market town. We will train those girls to do other things, like weaving and stitching, which will give them some earnings to live on. This obscene practice and humiliation of those girls who are also my sisters has to stop.’

Everyone stares at him in stupefaction. He is calling those girls his sisters! Is he drunk on saraayi? Now the villagers understand what he means when he says he can be a gumma. He has the power to do this, take a decision entirely on his own and no one can oppose him. Maybe there is something to this panchayati rajya after all.

Ajji gets up and goes to hug Puttaswamegowda. Thimmakka is also happy, smiling at this brother whom she so often takes for granted. Old Annaiah lifts him up high joyfully.

The village folk silently file out of the Kamadeva temple. As Puttaswamegowda comes out, Beeri, singing with joy, does a drishti for him and raises her arms in blessing. All the women standing with her do the same. The men bow their heads. Puttaswamegowda smiles and walks away, tall, virile and confident, with a proud Ajji and a chattering Thimmakka in his wake.

Dasegowda opposes this move and threatens the village with Ooramma’s anger. But Puttaswamegowda’s eloquence and Annaiah’s powerful story have had their impact. The villagers are feeling shamed that they have left the girls there so long. The girls come running out of the temple into the arms of their families, who take them back home until Puttaswamegowda moves them to the town.

Ooramma’s old priest is helpless. His wife Bachchamma supports Puttaswamegowda’s stand. An intelligent woman, she figures out that the best way to convince her husband is to tell him that his now-seldom free sex with those girls and the paltry amounts they earn are not worth the money it takes to feed, clothe and support them in the temple. She tells the avaricious Dasegowda: ‘Whatever money is given to the Ooramma temple by the village people, as well as all the harvested crop, it is all ours and we can use it to spend on our Maadeva’s education. Do you want him also to be stuck in this village and be a useless temple priest like you? Let those girls go. You look after our grandson’s interests.’ Dasegowda is silenced.

18. Kamadeva’s People

18

KAMADEVA’S PEOPLE