z:\ ambedkar\vol 011\vol11 03.indd MK SJ+YS 5 10 2013/YS 18 11 2013 156
156 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
passed from house to house on his undiscriminating round, he came to his father’s house.
II
Indoors, in the hall within the middle door, his father was having his hair combed and, seeing Ratthapala coming in the distance, he said : “It was these shavelings of recluses who made Bhikku of my only dear and beloved son.”
So at his own father’s house Ratthapala was given nothing, not even a refusal; all he got was abuse.
At this moment a slave-girl of the family was about to throw away the previous day’s stale rice; and to her Ratthapala said: “If, sister, that is to be thrown away, put it in my bowl here.”
As the girl was doing so, she recognized his hands and feet and voice, and going straight to her mistress, cried out: “Do you know, madam, the young master is back.”
“If what you say is true, you are a slave no longer,” said the mother, who hurried off to tell her husband that she heard their son was back.
Ratthapala was eating that stale rice under the hedge when his father arrived, exclaiming; “Can it be, my dear son, that you are eating stale rice? Should you not have come to your own house ?”
Said Ratthapala, “What house of our own, householder, can we have who are homeless, having gone forth from home to homelessness ? I did come to your house, where I was given nothing not even a refusal ; all I got was abuse.”
‘Come, my son; let us go indoors.’ ‘Not so, householder; I have finished my eating for today.’ said Ratthapala.
‘Well then, my son promise to take your meal here tomorrow.’
By his silence the reverend Ratthapala gave consent.
Then the father went indoors,—where first he ordered great heaps of gold and bullion to be piled up under a covering of mats and then he told his daughters-in-law, who had been the reverend