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Chapter 6
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Q & A, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coincidence vs. Fate
Poverty and Inequality
Corruption and Justice
Religion in India
Summary
Analysis
Ram shares that one day, he was in New Delhi’s Paharganj railway station, not as a beggar or a sweeper, but as a passenger to Mumbai. He is heading to see Salim and has his salary from Colonel Taylor hidden in an envelope in his underwear, the one place where he thinks it will be safe.
Ram watches all the activity around him on the train and imagines the lives of the people he sees. Ram talks to a boy named Akshay, and at one point, Ram can’t help bragging about the 50,000 rupees he has on him, pulling it out to show Akshay. Around 10 p.m., everyone starts going to their berths to go to sleep. When Ram wakes up, a man with a big mustache tells the train passengers that it’s a robbery and his partner is blocking the exit. The two dacoits (bandits) make everyone put their possessions in a sack. When a baby cries, the dacoits make the mother breastfeed it, then they grope her. When a businessman protests, the dacoits whack him in the head with a pistol, leaving a gash.
The dacoits are yet another example of corruption. Rather than earning money legitimately like Ram did, they prey off the success of others. Additionally, the way the one dacoit gropes the breastfeeding woman suggests that they are sexual predators, just like many of the other men Ram has encountered on his journeys. This is also another example of Ram living an action-filled scene like something out of a movie, only to learn that real life is less glamorous and exciting.
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Themes
Frightened by the dacoits, Akshay tells them about Ram’s hidden 50,000 rupees. Ram protests, but because the dacoits have a gun, he eventually hands over the money. The dacoits collect the money, then prepare to leave. One of them leaves with the sack of valuables while the other tries to make a woman give him a goodbye kiss, then tells her to strip when she refuses. While he is distracted, the baby jumps out of the other woman’s lap and starts clawing at the dacoit’s face. The baby and the man wrestle over the gun, but as the man tries to shoot the baby, it manages to twist the gun around. Suddenly, there is a blast. Ram himself is holding a gun, feeling like he just woke up from a dream. Ram is actually the one who shot the dacoit is dead.
Ram looks down at the gun and sese “COLT” chiseled into its side. Ram knows police will be looking for him, so at the next stop, he tosses the gun in a river and takes more trains in different directions to lose anyone who might be following him. He arrives in a city called Agra and decides to hide out there for a while.
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In the present, Smita is amazed by the story. She thinks that even though Ram killed the dacoit, he probably doesn’t have police after him because it’s unlikely the other train passengers would’ve wanted to implicate him. They press play on the DVD. Prem Kumar asks Ram who invented the revolver, and Ram correctly guesses Samuel Colt.
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