Renuka: But don’t they say we’re untouchables?

Maisamma: That’s the irony of sex Renu. How I wish you remain untouchable for them.

Renuka: What about you?

Maisamma: One day Shankar Rao Patel caught my hand in the fields, and I slapped him with all my strength. Imagine what he did. He took my hand, rolled it over his face, and said that he loved it far better that way. After that, I couldn’t resist him for long. Well, we had a steady affair till he died, sadly at fifty. But unlike the peddolluyou’ve come to see, he was a kind man.

Renuka: What about aththa?

Maisamma: My Mallamma is made of a different mettle. When this dora tried to molest her, she said she would rather die than yield to him. But as he tried to grab her still, she ran like hell and jumped into their well. Luckily, she was saved in the nick of time.

Renuka: Oh, really!

Maisamma: That’s not all. What a predicament it was for the peddollu that an untouchable jumped into their well. As nobody was prepared to drink from it, they had to purify it with gangajal,that too after pumping out all the water from it. In the meantime, oh how long it took them, they had to fetch water from other villages. Well, what news it made then, and they got the message that Mallamma won’t bend any way. Maybe, it could be the fear of her jumping into the well again that keeps the patels and the patwaris too at bay.

Renuka: Why not all of us do that naanamma?

Maisamma: It’s because of our love to live that we put up with the indignities of life. Being branded loose women is just one such.

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Renuka: What about thememsaabs?

Maisamma: Why aren’t they women like us.

Renuka: But do they get close to our dalitmen?

Maisamma: In hush-hush ways that is. But if the cat is out of the bag, often it gets killed. Of course, the dark one, but the fate of the fair thing depends on other things. But, mostly the affair is pushed under the carpet.

[Enter: Yadagiri with Yellaiah and Mallamma.]

Yadagiri: Amma,Maisaiah is dead.

Maisamma: Oh how come?

Yellaiah: I doubt that Shaukar got him killed.

Maisamma: But why should he get his own naukar killed?

Yellaiah: Shaukar says Maisaiah has stolen his money but I suspect there’s something fishy about it. [Then he turns to Mallamma.] Malli, didn’t Maisaiah tell us that he was going to memsaab as she had some work for him before Shaukar returned from Warangal. Can’t we now put two and two together?




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