It is present and Rahel and Estha are sleeping in his room together. Estha is watching Rahel sleep, which reminds him of his mother and the last time that he saw her. I think it is very sad that he didn't know when his mother actually died. It just kind of hit me now as I was writing this. That would be absolutely horrible to think that someone is alive for two weeks when they have actually been dead for that long. I think that this is something else that affected his not speaking. I still think that there is more to that, but I think that this plays a part.
Now it is a while after Sophie's death. The author is telling about what the newspapers reported of the death. It said that Velutha had kidnapped the children, which is not true. I don't know why or what really happened, but the book said that this was not true.
It is right after Sophie died. The policeman are going to the History House because they think that the children and Velutha are there. When they get there, they find Rahel, Estha, and Velutha asleep. It also says that the children didn't even know that Velutha was there until the next thing happened. The police started to beat him mercilessly. They cracked skull, hit him in the stomach, spine, and anywhere that they could. They did this all in front of the children. That was really stupid of the policeman. Why couldn't they have taken the children out of the room? To make them watch that is just so horrible. No one, no matter the age, wants or needs to see that. The children are impressionable young minds. This is just one more thing to negatively affect their adult lives. And even after the police beat Velutha almost to death, they still cuffed him. I don't even think he could walk. There was absolutely no need to do that.
When the police finally got everyone out, they noticed that the room seemed to have a lot of toys and the essence of someone being there very often. They got rid of half of this stuff because they knew that they screwed up. They had thought Velutha kidnapped the children and maybe did something even worse to them, but when they saw all the stuff, they realized that they were wrong. Now they had to cover up their mistake. I wish that people would just take responsibility for their actions.
This part made me angry at the policemen and pretty much everyone in the book. It is just everyone's fault. It is Baby's fault for lieing to the police. It is Velutha and Ammu's fault for having an affair. It is Margaret's fault for bringing her child where they didn't need to be. It is Chacko's fault for needing them so much. It is Mammachi's fault for helping Velutha so much when he was a child. I think that everyone should take the blame for what happened to Sophie. I get now why they kept portraying Sophie as such a little angel. She is the only good person in this novel. She is the only one who didn't ruin another person's life.
1 comment:
Clearly police brutality has different meaning in India than the United States. Cops here could never get away with such behavior, especially in today's world where someone with a cellphone might tape it.
I agree with your comment "in front of the children", which goes to show you that these untouchables get kicked around a lot and not treated with respect even to this day. (assuming this kind of treatment goes on in India today)
The cover up is common when men in power screw up. We see this all the time in American politics. People don't like to take responsibility for their actions, and society tends to suffer for it I think.
This lie to the police had consequences, and so did their silence. I love your last paragraph and your statement about Sophie.
Mr. Farrell
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