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He outcasts were not allowed to mount the platform surrounding the well, because if they were ever to draw water from it, the Hindus of the three upper-castes would consider the water polluted. Nor were they allowed access to the nearby brook as their use of it would contaminate the stream. They had no well of their own because it cost a lot of money to dig a well in a hilly town. Perforce they had to collect at the foot of the upper-caste Hindu well and depend on the bounty of some of their superiors to pour water into their pitchers. More often than not there was no upper-caste Hindu present. Most of them were rich enough to get the water-carriers to supply them with plenty of fresh water every morning for their baths and kitchens, and only those came to the well who were either fond of an open-air bath or too poor to pay for the water-carriers’ services. So the outcasts had to wait for a chance to bring some uppercaste Hindu to the well, for luck to decide that he was kind, for fate to ordain that he had time — to get their pitchers filled with water. They crowded round the well, congested the space below its high brick platform, morning, noon and night, joining their hands in servile humility to every passer-by; cursing their fate, and bemoaning their lot, if they were refused the help they wanted; praying, beseeching and blessing, if some generous soul condescended to listen to them, or to help them.
When Sohini reached the well, there were already about ten other outcasts waiting. But there was no one to give them water. She had come as fast as she could to the well, full of fear and anxiety that she would have to wait her turn since she could see from a distance that there was already a crowd.
She didn’t feel disappointed so much as depressed to realise that she would be the eleventh to receive water. She had sensed the feeling in her brother’s soul. He was tired. He was thirsty. She had felt like a mother as she issued from her home to fetch water, a mother going out to fetch food and drink for her loved ones at home. Now as she sat in a row with her fellow sufferers, her heart sank. There was no sign of anyone passing that way who could be a possible benefactor. But she was patient. She had in her an inbred fortitude, obvious in her curious reserve, in her docile and peaceful bearing.