Previous
The Colonel’s Wife
Pundit Kali Nath is a Brahmin and one of the most prominent priests (hence his title “Pundit”) in Bulashah. Despite his high caste status, he is depicted as ungenerous, lecherous, and consumed with bodily feeling; he is constantly thinking about his own bowel movements or young girls’ bodies. After helping Sohini get water from the well, he demands that she come clean his temple, where he sexually assaults her. When Sohini protests, the Pundit cries out that he has been “polluted,” exemplifying the abuse of power that comes so naturally to so many of Bulashah’s higher-caste citizens.
Pundit Kali Nath Quotes in Untouchable
The Untouchable quotes below are all either spoken by Pundit Kali Nath or refer to Pundit Kali Nath. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Pages 3–43
Quotes
The expectant outcastes were busy getting their pictures ready, but as that only meant shifting themselves into position so to be nearest to this most bountiful, most generous of men, all their attention was fixed on him [Pundit Kali Nath]. […] But the Brahmin, becoming interested in the stirrings of his stomach, and the changing phases of his belly, looked, for a moment, absent-minded. A subtle wave of warmth seemed to have descended slowly down from his arms to the pit of his abdomen, and he felt a strange stirring above his navel such as he had not experienced for months, so pleasing was it in its intimations of the relief it would bring him.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 43–73
Quotes
[Bakha] lifted his head and looked round. The scales fell from his eyes. He could see the little man with a drooping mustache whom he knew to be a priest of the temple, racing up the courtyard, trembling, stumbling, tottering, falling, with his arms lifted in the air, and in his mouth the hushed cry ‘polluted, polluted, polluted.’
‘I have been seen, undone,’ the sentence quickly flashed across Bakha’s mind.
A superb specimen of humanity [Bakha] seemed whenever he made the high resolve to say something, to go and do something, his fine form rising like a tiger at bay. And yet […] he could not overstep the barriers which the conventions of his superiors had built up to protect their weakness against him. He could not invade the magic circle which protects a priest from attack by anybody, especially by a low-caste man. So, in the highest moment of his strength, the slave in him asserted himself, and he lapsed back, wild with torture, biting his lips, ruminating his grievances […].
He contemplated his experience now in the spirit of resignation which he had inherited through the long centuries down through his countless outcaste ancestors, fixed, yet flowing like a wave, confirmed at the beginning of each generation by the discipline of the caste ideal.
‘But, father, what is the use?’ Bakha shouted. ‘They would ill-treat us even if we shouted. They think we are mere dirt because we clean their dirt. That pundit in the temple tried to molest Sohini and then came shouting: “Polluted, polluted.”’
Get the entire Untouchable LitChart as a printable PDF.
Pundit Kali Nath Quotes in Untouchable
The Untouchable quotes below are all either spoken by Pundit Kali Nath or refer to Pundit Kali Nath. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Pages 3–43
Quotes
The expectant outcastes were busy getting their pictures ready, but as that only meant shifting themselves into position so to be nearest to this most bountiful, most generous of men, all their attention was fixed on him [Pundit Kali Nath]. […] But the Brahmin, becoming interested in the stirrings of his stomach, and the changing phases of his belly, looked, for a moment, absent-minded. A subtle wave of warmth seemed to have descended slowly down from his arms to the pit of his abdomen, and he felt a strange stirring above his navel such as he had not experienced for months, so pleasing was it in its intimations of the relief it would bring him.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 43–73
Quotes
[Bakha] lifted his head and looked round. The scales fell from his eyes. He could see the little man with a drooping mustache whom he knew to be a priest of the temple, racing up the courtyard, trembling, stumbling, tottering, falling, with his arms lifted in the air, and in his mouth the hushed cry ‘polluted, polluted, polluted.’
‘I have been seen, undone,’ the sentence quickly flashed across Bakha’s mind.
A superb specimen of humanity [Bakha] seemed whenever he made the high resolve to say something, to go and do something, his fine form rising like a tiger at bay. And yet […] he could not overstep the barriers which the conventions of his superiors had built up to protect their weakness against him. He could not invade the magic circle which protects a priest from attack by anybody, especially by a low-caste man. So, in the highest moment of his strength, the slave in him asserted himself, and he lapsed back, wild with torture, biting his lips, ruminating his grievances […].
He contemplated his experience now in the spirit of resignation which he had inherited through the long centuries down through his countless outcaste ancestors, fixed, yet flowing like a wave, confirmed at the beginning of each generation by the discipline of the caste ideal.
‘But, father, what is the use?’ Bakha shouted. ‘They would ill-treat us even if we shouted. They think we are mere dirt because we clean their dirt. That pundit in the temple tried to molest Sohini and then came shouting: “Polluted, polluted.”’
