The author describes a group of "outcasts from Hindu society" (9) who live together in a colony. They live in houses made of mud and have no drainage system, so when it rains sewage runs through the streets.

An eighteen year old Hindu boy named Bakha is "in charge of the three rows of public latrines" (9). He has been working in the British barracks for three years and "has been caught by the glamor of the 'white mans' life" (9). The Tommies (slang for the British) have treated Bakha well, and he has begun to think of himself as superior to the other outcasts. He wears the clothes of the British and also uses their thin blankets, although they are not warm enough to keep him from shivering at night. When he had first seen the British barracks, "he had soon become possessed with an overwhelming desire to live their life" (11).

At night, he waits for his father to summon him to latrine duty. Bakha does not believe that his father understands the Tommies. He remembers the morning after his mother died. Even though he had been awake, Bakha's father had shouted at him as if he were trying to sleep longer out of laziness.