Untouchable

Bakha escapes, and he is enraged. He wants revenge. "Why was all this fuss?" he asks himself. "Why was I so humble? I could have struck him!" (51). He realizes that the tonga-wallah was not afraid to touch him, because Mohammadans are also viewed as Untouchables by the Hindus. Bakha mutters the word Untouchable repeatedly, and people stare at him.

He reaches the courtyard of the temple and prepares to start cleaning. He sees people coming in and out of the temple and asks himself, "What have these people come to worship?" (57). Bakha wants to go into the temple and see what is inside, but knows that his presence would "pollute it past purification" (58). He sneaks to the top step and is able to see some of the temple interior. He sees half-nude priests leading the worshippers in a chant. He clasps his hands and bows his head, moved by the song.

He hears a priest shouting "Polluted!" (61) and worries that he has been seen. But the priest is with his sister, Sohini. A man is screaming that Sohini touched him, and he is polluted. Sohini tells Bakha that the priest made sexual advances on her when she was cleaning the lavatory, and when she resisted, he had run into the courtyard claiming that he had been defiled.