![]() He wants to stand and stare at it, but everyone is pushing out of the boats, so the crowd moves him along. When Hari finally sees Bombay, he is awestruck. A man eventually sees him and asks whose son he is he notices Hari has no food and gives him a chapati, which Hari takes gratefully even though his mouth is almost too dry to eat it. He will have to get a job and work and live in Bombay. He wonders if he has done the right thing, but he knows he can’t turn back now. Hari is the only person from his village in the boat, and he sits at the bottom where no one notices him. Eventually, he’s hot and tired, and the other men tell him to sit down and save his strength for the protest. ![]() The vibe is more of a holiday than a protest, and Adarkar keeps shouting to remind people why they are going to Bombay. From Rewas to Bombay is fourteen kilometers, and the men and boys sing as they sail. The boats set out like dolphins over the waves. The sun has risen by this time and lights up the water in shades of purple and green and blue. ![]() Adarkar is at the piers as well, and Hari goes along the pier following the crowd until men lift him and put him in a boat. He had thought he was being adventurous, but now he sees that there are all sorts of men and boys going, and he feels a little bit less special and brave. Hari is surprised to find the pier at Rewas teeming with people he had not thought so many people were heading to Bombay. The man says that nothing is enough because the planet’s population is growing too large, so there is not enough to go around, which is why big factories have to be made in a desperate attempt to change that. The driver tells Hari that soon everything will be made in a factory, and nothing produced by hand: no more spinning yarn, no more grinding wheat at home. Hari reaches Rewas at dawn, and tries to pay the driver, but the man waves his money away, saying that he was going to Rewas anyways to pick up fertilizer (Hari is surprised to hear the word again). The cart is totally bare and Hari spends an uncomfortable night being jostled around the rough cart, getting sore from the hard wood. Finally, a bull-drawn cart comes along and Hari asks for a lift the driver obliges. ![]() Meanwhile, Hari had been hoping to catch a bus to Rewas, but he stands by the Thul bus stop for an hour in the night and no buses come. The narrator tells us that by then, Hari was so far away from Thul that he had completely forgotten about Jal Pari, Biju’s boat. The following day it doesn’t either, and it takes many days of hard effort before finally in the dark of night the boat is put out to sea with no crowd to watch its launch. The next day, the tide does not come up high enough to lift the boat. They must wait for the tide to rise to lift the fallen boat. Has he gone to Bombay? Another boy says Hari would be stupid to do that. The boys retort that they “know better” than fishing, and that they will get jobs in the factory while Biju catches “a few stinking fish.” Biju starts cursing at them and they laugh and dodge him. Biju yells at them that they know nothing about fishing. He asks where his Alibagh workers are, and a young boy says they have gone to Rewas with Adarkar to petition the Bombay government. Biju is angry and yells at the village men who had been trying to move the boat while the onlookers laugh. Men lift the boat onto oiled tree trunks, but they lose control of the boat, which is not held back by any restraints, and run for their lives as it topples over onto its side. Biju’s wife and daughter pass around sweets, and his wife breaks a coconut on the prow of the boat. Biju’s wife has made a banner, and Biju sits and watches over the scene with pride. The next morning (the morning after Hari leaves), the village gathers to watch the launch of Biju’s new boat.
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