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Coolies
An originally Sanskrit word for a great ruler or king. Over time, it became a relatively common title denoting honor.
Maharaja Quotes in Kanthapura
The Kanthapura quotes below are all either spoken by Maharaja or refer to Maharaja. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Section 5 Quotes
And they all rose up like one rock and fell on the ground saying, “You are a dispenser of good, O Maharaja, we are the lickers of your feet…”
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After the maistri marches the group of coolies up the hill to the Skeffington Coffee Estate and the Sahib threatens seven-year-old Chenna to explain his policies about discipline and punishment, the coolies bow down to the Sahib and proclaim their loyalty to him. They do so because they are frightened, calling the Sahib by the traditional term for a king or ruler (“Maharaja”). By conflating the Sahib’s power over the coolies’ lives as laborers with the traditional role of an Indian ruler, this quote in turn illustrates how political and economic power are conflated under colonialism: the British colonial regime’s Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaec
[Pariah Siddayya] tells you about the dasara havu that is so clever that he got into the Sahib’s drawer and lay there curled up, and how, the other day, when the sahib goes to the bathroom, a lamp in his hand, and opens the drawer to take out some soap, what does he see but our Maharaja, nice and clean and shining with his eyes glittering in the lamplight, and the Sahib, he closes the drawer as calmly as a prince; but by the time he is back with his pistol, our Maharaja has given him the slip. And the Sahib opens towel after towel to greet the Maharaja, but the Maharaja has gone on his nuptial ceremony and he will never be found.
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Siddayya’s story about a “dasara havu” (a kind of snake) that he calls the Maharaja inverts the coolies’ prostration before the Sahib as Maharaja just two pages before. Siddayya, who has worked on the Skeffington Coffee Estate for longer than anyone else, knows about every variety of snake that lives nearby and argues that snakes only attack deserving victims. His deep knowledge of the Estate’s local environment naturally makes him a leader and an elder figure among the coolies, and he passes down this local knowledge orally, creating an tradition that is grounded in place, much like the one that Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut ali
Section 18 Quotes
“Satyanarayan Maharaj ki jai!”
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In lieu of their usual cries (“Vandé Mataram!,” “Inquilab Zindabad!,” and “Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!”), the Kanthapura Gandhians open their final march against the police with a new cry of “Satyanarayan Maharaj ki jai!.” Instead of declaring victory for Gandhi, they declare victory for Satyanarayan, a manifestation of the god Vishnu that effectively translates to “truth as the highest being,” which is also their Maharaja (or great ruler). They choose this cry because it is religious rather than political in content, and they correctly believe that the police will be more reluctant to stop them during an ostensibly religious march Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Und
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Maharaja Term Timeline in Kanthapura
The timeline below shows where the term Maharaja appears in Kanthapura. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Section 1
Sometimes, the poet Sastri delivers Harikathas—he has been honored by the Maharaja of Mysore and, according to rumors, even has a permanent role lined up in the...
(full context)
Section 5
...the maistri repeated in their native language. The coolies begin worshipping the Sahib as a Maharaja, and the maistri spits in one worker’s face when she asks for pay. The maistri...
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...harmless unless attacked, and sits to tell the story of a snake he calls the Maharaja, which hid in the Sahib’s drawer and slithered away when the Sahib fetched his pistol.
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