Baby Kochamma
Chapter 2, page 70
Scene: Baby Kochamma in the car at the revolution
I think about myself growing up. I think about what India used to be. Controlled, FAIR. This is outrageous it makes me so angry to think how much India has changed for the worst over my lifetime. These communists think we can be equal, but how can we be equal? We are all different, living different lives, having different incomes and separate positions in this caste system. Now I am lying on the floor with great fear in this car wondering how, just how did it come to this? It doesn’t have to be like this, they need to accept that we will never be the same, and more than that, we DON’T want to be.
These different caste systems and the different ways we are treated, means something. It’s not there to be changed or improved, its there so that people know their place in the world. If people are born into an untouchable family they need to stay there because this isn’t a place where any fraternizing between different castes is accepted. I think that it should stay that way. They are dirty people who need to know and learn that we are better than them and if anything deserve more than them. They need to be respectful of us and our standards compared to theirs. They should sweep away their footprints as they leave a room and not become involved with anyone of higher caste. This is just how it is and until they learn to respect that, they are going to have a miserable life.
Oh and that dreadful Velutha. He has always tried to act as though he is not an untouchable. I know though, and I will never let him forget and if I have to be hard on him I will. He used to come to our house with his father delivering coconuts. You’d think he would get the point when he wasn’t let in, but no. Then when Mammachi began to get friendlier towards him saying he was good with building, as he made toys for Ammu, you can tell that he was beginning to think and feel as though maybe he could one day become more than just, an untouchable. He is wrong, he will NEVER be anything more than that and neither will anyone from his family, the sooner he learns that the better. Velutha should be grateful for the way he has been treated but no, that’s not the behaviour he shows. It’s not even remotely close to the way he acts.
I have never been so fearful of anything than this day. It makes me weak to the knees and sick in the stomach. Waiving this flag will mean I’m giving in and not fighting anymore. I can’t do it. I'm scared of what might happen to my life, the life that I have built. Other people might not see it but in my eyes my livelihood is what makes me, me and I'm proud of who I am and what I believe in. I swear if Chacko keeps going on and acting the way he is
