From 50 Years Ago: Tamil Nadu: Gentlemen Killers of Kilvenmani

From Our Correspondents

Huts without roof. Huts without walls. Huts ground to dust. To ash. Huts with broken bangle pieces. A silence that ill became a cheri (a Harijan street) accustomed to barking dogs, screeching children, gossiping women and drunken brawls. An old woman, wrinkled and dried up, crouched under a tree, wailing feebly. A street dog lay in the shade, whining now and then. Visitors from near and far went round the cheri in silence. Some talked to the old woman, who seemed to be the only resident of that graveyard street. She clung to them in sorrow and in horror of a nightmarish memory, her frail body shaken by sobs. She kept mumbling, “They are all gone. Those beautiful girls. The young babes. They are all burnt to ashes. That bastard, that landlord said he would wipe out the whole lot of us. Not a single one would be spared, he said. And he has done just that. But why was I spared? Of what use am I to anyone? All my loved ones are gone.” […]