Bama

Bama, the narrator of the second part, is a lively, curious Dalit child with a sharp eye for the world around her. On her way home from school she is easily delighted by the ordinary bustle of the street, and this innocence is important, for it makes her sudden awakening all the more moving. When she notices the strange, deferential way an elder of her community carries a packet for an upper-caste landlord, her natural response is amusement rather than understanding. It is only through her brother's explanation that innocence gives way to awareness, and amusement to anger and shame. Bama's real strength shows in what she does with that awareness: rather than sink into helplessness, she resolves to fight caste prejudice through study and achievement, insisting that "we too are human beings." She develops from an unknowing child into a determined young person committed to earning respect and dignity, and her significance is as a symbol of the marginalised who choose education and effort as the path to self-respect.