“Ayoh! Enn’ idhu?” It’s a woman’s voice, accompanied by running feet. A family group looks down on him.

“Who is it?”

“An Iyer!”

“Is the Iyer hurt? Does he need assistance?”

They do not make eye contact with him, and stand at a respectful and non-polluting distance, slightly bowed, rigid.

“No, you silly people, the Iyer doesn’t need help,” Murthy bellows. “As long as he knows you dolts are not participating in this scandalous and disrespectful so-called Ramayana, he will be fine.” He returns his attention to the sky.

A crowd has dribbled in behind the first family. As they grasp Murthy’s intentions, some begin to look guilty. Others begin to smile behind raised hands. Yet others appear worried. None, however, passes him by and the crowd grows as fast and thick as the darkness, bottlenecking some four feet from Murthy’s prone form. A continual murmuring passes the message back and along.

A familiar voice rings out above the hum-Rama Sastri. “By Jove, it’s working!”

Murthy straightens still further. The next voice, Dr. Kittu Iyer, sounds pleased and pompous. “Well done. Well done, I say. Move aside! Step aside, here. At once!”

In the instant before they achieve the front of the crowd, however, something transpires to Murthy’s other side.

Rama! Sita! Lakshmana! Hanuman! Each springs from the bushes and takes his pose until they form a grotesque caricature of the classic formation, the very one that graces Sivakami’s main hall. Murthy is lying at their feet. As one, they glance down and their faces light up with exaggerated pleasure. They present Murthy to the crowd with a sweeping gesture, as though his is one more body on the battlefield of Lanka, and a great cheer rises up. Minister and the members of his salon emerge and break this sound bubble; at their appearance, a nervous hush falls like soap film upon the masses.

Now another shout is heard from behind the crowd, and all turn and crane to see: it is Ravana-tall, handsome, noble-looking, as he would not be in the conventional Ramayana-who at the end of the previous performance was borne away, cold and ashen, on a funeral bier. Now he brandishes a sword atop a silk-jacketed steed, which capers and snorts as vigorously as his master.

“He lives!” shouts the shrimpy Rama, and cowers, the heel of his hand pressed to his mouth. Lakshmana hides behind his brother; Sita bats her eyelashes at her former captor; Hanuman, a large-cheeked fellow with a tail, yawns and scratches.

Vairum approaches through a group of not only lower-caste labourers, but Panchamas (as untouchables are coming to be called), Christians, even Muslims, though each sub-group has clustered and holds itself subtly apart from the others.

“He lives! He lives! He lives!” The chant begins in the crowd.

But which crowd? For Ravana not only faces a crowd but leads one. Which is composed of… strangers. Vairum will later learn that the 05:40 Thiruchi local pulled in and deposited them-mostly young, many urban, some from as far away as Madras, all chanting Self-Respect slogans-on the Kulithalai platform, where this Ravana had met them.

The local crowd pulls back to form a ring with more of their own numbers, who have continued to appear at the rear of Ravana’s guard. Murthy has not moved, though he lifts his head and strains to see.

“How charming,” sneers Ravana, and suddenly turns his horse’s flank toward the salon members and sweeps his sword downward. The sun reflects red off the blade and they cringe into one another. “Nay, how convenient. The Brahmins and Brahmin-lovers have come to us.” Ravana looks beyond them, toward the tent, and they turn, also, to see the rest of the cast-some twenty actors-assembled behind Rama.

“Gentlemen,” Ravana booms. “The moment of justice’s proof has arrived!” Three of the actors take hold of Rama, Sita and Lakshmana, three others snap them into leg irons. In the same moment, Minister’s arms are pulled roughly back and his wrists tied. He looks back wildly to see a fiendish young face with huge white teeth and snapping black eyes.

“Release me at once!” Vairum hears from Ranga Chettiar, though he can’t see exactly what is happening.

“Brute!” This is Rama Sastri. All the salon members have been apprehended, except Vairum, who is not with them.

“As a rightful and invincible monarch of the Dravidian people, I declare the trial of our oppressors, betrayers and false prophets open. Lead the prisoners to the dock!”

Ravana wheels his charge and then stops with a puzzled frown, as though he’s heard something but can’t place the source. His glance breasts the crowd and then descends to a form at his feet.

“Halt,” Vairum hears Murthy squeak.

“Naptime?” asks Ravana.

“Sabotage, my liege,” offers an actor with a gaudy band around his arm reading “bailiff.” “He thought he could prevent the audience from coming in if he lay across the path.”

Ravana dismounts with a jangle and clank-earrings, chains, bangles, belt, hilt, scabbard, anklets-and steps up to Murthy, whose features contract in fright as he draws his hands to his breast like a dog showing its belly.

“How you Aryans under-esteem us,” Ravana tut-tuts. He takes a great stride, led by an immense foot clad in a gold-embroidered, curved-toe slipper with a stamped-leather sole, across and over Murthy’s sunken chest-a gesture of magnificent disrespect. Ravana’s horse follows suit and Ravana remounts.

“On with the show!” he cries, and gallops toward the tent.

Murthy is hauled to his feet by a couple of bailiffs and dragged along with the crowd toward the tent.

The painted backdrop, which, for the last week, has displayed scenes of palaces, forests and rocky beaches-Rama’s castle was mysteriously identical to Ravana’s, down to the personnel-now provides the atmosphere of a courtroom, with a ragged St. George flapping forlornly off the same flagpole as Ravana’s flag, which stands out straight, starched with rice paste. On a podium stands a statuette, dangling scales from one hand; instead of classical Greek garb, however, the female figure is wrapped in the manner of a Tamil country tribal.

As Vairum surges forward with the crowd, he realizes that his salon-fellows are not the only detainees. There are others who must have been frog-marched in with the crowd from points distant. But-that one, with the wire-rimmed spectacles and bald head-is he supposed to be…? If he were reduced by about three stone, perhaps he could pass. And why is that other prisoner clad in the jaunty cap and buttoned-up jacket of…? But the hat is tied on with string, and that dark visage, with teeth poking out in all directions, hardly cuts the profile on which so many hearts are said to have been dashed. The men of the salon don’t look up often, but when they do, they are even more frightened to find themselves surrounded by characters whom they recognize from newspapers and books, but whose likenesses here are to those photos as the Self-Respect Ramayana is to the original. Vairum is concerned for the salon members and glad to be out in the crowd, should anything untoward happen. But until it does, he has to admit this Ramayana is far more entertaining than the other.

“And now, who is our judge?” demands Ravana of the crowd. “Who will sit in judgment on all those who, in weakness and greed, have downtrodden the rightful people of Dravida Nadu?”

“You, Ravana!” several young men chorus back. “You judge!”

Ravana blushes and fawns. “No, no, I really couldn’t.”

Uproarious laughter rises from the crowds and Ravana turns serious.

“No, I refuse to judge because I myself must be judged. I want to submit to trial along with all the others who have purported to rule and lead you. Let us put a halt to blackmail and subterfuge, and let the people judge who is to rule them!”

Cheering.

“But someone must guide and order the proceedings, at least, and for this task I propose our Mariamman, never bent nor bowed.” He kicks off his slippers and makes an elaborate prostration to the tribal goddess. All those present do the same, though the salon members must be rolled into and lifted out of the position, unable to help themselves with their hands.