Summary

This short story begins with a second person narrator telling the reader that in order to find a trustworthy cook, driver or other servant, one has to go to Salt Market Village. It is still a very poor and rural part of Kittur even though it has been a part of the town since 1988. In April or May there is a local festival know as the "rat hunt" where the women of the suburb march through the rice fields at night to drive out the rodents who live in the field. They drive all of the rats, shrews and mongooses to the center of the field and club them to death. The only true tourist destination in Salt Market Village is that of an abandoned Jain basadi, where early Kannada epics were written. In 1990 the Mormon Church of Utah acquired...