"He didn't feel sad, however, to think that she was dead. He just couldn't summon sorrow to the world he lived in, the world of his English clothes and 'Red-Lamp' cigarettes, because it seemed she was not of that world, had no connection with it."

As the novel begins, Bakha identifies more strongly with the British—who he emulates in mannerism and dress—than with Indian culture. His desire to be British is so strong that his mother's death does not seem to him connected to the world in which he actually lives. Until he begins his day of persecution as an Untouchable, he can forget that he is a member of the lowest caste, even though his family has been Untouchable for generations.

"A soft smile lingered on his lips, the smile of a slave overjoyed at the condescension of his master, more akin to pride than to happiness."

After Charat Singh offers to give Bakha a hockey stick, Bakha smiles. But there are few signs in the novel that he ever experiences real happiness. The Untouchables are unused to kindness, compliments, or gifts. Bakha smiles because someone higher has deigned to stoop to his level, not because he is being treated as an equal.

"He worked unconsciously. This forgetfulness or emptiness persisted in him over long periods. It was a sort of insensitivity created in him by the kind of work he had to do, a tough skin which must be a shield against all the most awful sensations."

Bakha's work is so menial, dull, and dirty, that he blocks it out in self-defense even as he does it. Because he was born Untouchable, he is not able to aspire to more than the most awful sensations described in the quote. To be an Untouchable is to be forgetful and empty as a matter of survival.