Aside from the work, being an untouchable is hard. We were forbidden from touching (even accidentally) any people who were higher caste; even making eye contact was something I sometimes would be beaten for. Sometimes, sikkaliars would be beaten to death for making the mistake of touching someone outside their caste. If we tried to buy something in a store, we have to pay only in coins, because people will not accept money directly from us; generally if they accept our money at all, they have a dish that we must drop our coins into, then they will pour some water over it to purify it before they will touch it. In places like tea shops, they keep separate dishes and cups for our use; often these are broken and frequently dirty. In schools, the teachers will often refuse to teach the sikkaliar children; they will keep us seated far from the rest of the class and will not allow us to touch the books or papers or pens or other materials we need to learn; so hardly any children go to school because there is no point in it when you are not allowed access to the learning and the teacher only the whole time tells you how you are worthless and are polluting her classroom.
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