The morning of August 16, 1946, witnessed a massive confrontation in front of my house. The battle lasted four hours. The rioters carried corrugated tin sheets, placed them upright on the road and from behind this, threw brickbats and othermissiles. Several shops were set ablaze. Coaches were dragged out from a stable, and razed. Terrified animals ran helter-skelter. Rioters battled each other with swords, spears and daggers, hurling expletives at each other. A young rioterwas injured in the head and began bleeding profusely. Doctors administered oluntary first aid. The frenzied laments of shopowners, the screams of the coachmen, thick smoke and smouldering fires added to the eeriness in the air. Though I was just nine years old, I do recall that fire-fighters and the police, as had become routine, appeared much later--after everything was over. The aftermath was heart-rending. The rioters looted the house of a middleaged woman. After the inmates abandoned the house, she returned in the hope of salvaging some of her belongings. Tears in her eyes, she beseeched an armed constable to escort her But the tears did not move him.