Untouchable

In Bakha's outcaste colony, he is a minority that dresses and acts differently than everyone else. In this sense, "Indianness" can be seen as the dominant force that he encounters on a daily basis. One of the most evident ways that he resists the culture around him is by dressing like Tommies, or the British and Indian soldiers. Bakha wishes more than anything to be a superior like them, and does his best to imitate the soldiers by dressing like them. Bakha tries to push "Indianness" away from him by "guarding [his clothes] from all base taint of Indianness" (12). He believes that any resemblance to the Tommies makes him superior to the other citizens of his colony, and that any detail in his life: the way he walks, talks, or dresses, should not be "tainted" by his own culture. If he is in any way tainted, Bakha believes that he will not be part of his supposed superior social standing, and will only assimilate with his culture and be of a low social standing. This assimilation would mean that Bakha is no longer "resisting" the dominant "Indianness" that he encounters daily.