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For where shall a man turn who has no money? Where can he go? Wide, wide world, but as narrow as the coins in your hand. Like a tethered goat, so far and no farther. Only money can make the rope stretch, only money.

By Chapter 27, Rukmani has lost everything, even the hope of turning to her son Murugan, who has abandoned the city and his family. She and Nathan return to the temple and unhappily subsist on the single daily meal the temple provides. Rukmani and Nathan consider the skills with which they might earn a living and find none of them suited to the city. Nathan can farm but has no land. Rukmani can spin and weave but has no money for materials. Despite all of the people and the commerce surrounding them in the city, they have no opportunities. This passage is Rukmani’s lament. Her vivid image of the tethered goat describes both her constraint and her powerlessness. It evokes the gentleness of the goats at the temple whose grateful eyes thanked Rukmani for a mouthful of leaves. In the country, Rukmani and Nathan manage to survive without much money by living simply on the products of their own labor. In the city, with no work available, Rukmani rues the fact that only money counts. The city’s insistence upon cash reduces a person to an animal state and deprives Rukmani of the free will that characterizes her as human. Just as city thieves rob Nathan and Rukmani of their last coins, the city’s unjust structure robs them of liberty and choice, their birthrights as humans.

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