The caste-system is still alive and flourishing in certain regions of the Indian subcontinent. Hindu sects that live by its norms exist in pockets—large and small—all around the region. The Hindus claim that Brahma, God of Creation, created all men unequal. While some sects are believed to have emerged from Brahma’s mouth, others are said to have been expelled from his feet. Those who were created from his mouth are Brahmins, they believe, and those whose creation centred on his hands are Kshyatriyas. Sects that issued forth from his thighs were the Vaisya and those whose origins are believed to have been in his feet were relegated to the caste of Sudra, ‘untouchables’ who face discrimination in all aspects of their lives.
If you are a Brahmin, it is given that you do not let Sudras and Vaisyas enter your home despite the fact that your village life is seamlessly interwoven. The fabric of village society is created by inter-related threads—blacksmiths who make the essential tools for agriculture and play music during marriages and festivities, tailors who wear the very clothes in which you dress. As a Brahmin myself, I sometimes wonder what all those who’re deemed untouchable in my village would do, if they were plucked out of the Hindu society I live in, and then trained in foreign countries. At least one of my fellow villagers would make it as fashion designers I think, but that is only just a dream. The reality lies in poverty and illiteracy, in discrimination and untouchability.
As the dawn flaunted its hues of red over the horizon, the village housewives started waking up. One by one, the women opened their eyes to the crowing of roosters. Their daily chores had begun. At first, they opened the windows, inviting refreshing air into their aged homes. After a while, still sleepy-eyed, they opened their doors. Next, the village women emptied their clay water pots—which still held water from the day before—into a bucket for the cows to drink. They only wanted the freshest water and food for themselves. And their Gods and demigods would never accept stale offerings.
The morning was still cold, but they had to journey up to the village wells with their pots to fetch fresh warm water for the day. There were two water sources in the village, but these hardly provided enough water for everyone. They dried up altogether during the dry season. Every year, the villagers would plan possible ways through which they could bring water to their thirsty village, but these ideas never materialised into anything. This failure was not due to a lack of water sources nearby, but in fact stemmed from a lack of coordination among the villagers. The village men and women simply could not act as one, and this was one of the main reasons development had been stalled there. The dream was modernisation was just that—a titillating desire for all the villagers.
The way leading to the wells itself branched after a certain point. One of these paths led to the well that was secured for the higher castes while the other catered to those who belong to the lower castes. As might be expected, the well meant for the high-caste villagers was cleaner, more spacious. The space was big enough for users to be able to wash their bodies. The well meant for the low-castes on the other hand was very small. There was hardly any space for those who used it to wash their clothes, let alone their bodies. Yet hegemony over the better well persisted. Not one person from the lower-castes had the courage to go up to the better well for water.
As women from all households headed towards their respective wells, the dawn was growing into a beautiful morning. After completing all rituals associated with the fresh water, the women returned home. They prepared milk tea for the family and woke up their husbands, children and parents-in-law. A long day awaited them all. Although the husbands were technically their families’ breadwinners, the women still needed to support them for the men did not make nearly enough money to feed a family. For this particular village, vegetable farming provided solace.
As the morning gave birth to a fine new day, the housewives started harvesting their vegetables. They grew these on the little land they subsisted on. They placed the vegetables in huge bamboo-woven dokos they carried on their backs. Soon afterwards, they were all descending towards the Valley bazaar.
The pavement was not wide enough, and if you slipped, there would be rumours flying around the village for weeks. The women needed to be cautious; they needed to make sure that their produce was safe. After all, all their hopes were attached to their vegetables. The money they would get by selling their produce would be theirs to spend. While some of the women were thinking of buying bangles, jewellery or silk sarees, others were thinking about saving up for their children. There were many more women for whom coping with daily expenses was the major concern.
As they walked down the path, the sun appeared full in the sky. The village they had left behind them had come alive by then. The men, children and their grandparents sipped their morning teas and then went on to finish all morning chores. A few boys gathered at public junctures and broke dry branches off old trees to start a fire.
It was still cold outside, and one of these groups of young boys built a bonfire by the roadside. The village lads were all semi-literates and spent their time playing cards, hunting birds and chasing beautiful butterflies. This morning was like all the others they had wasted away to nothingness. Except this morning, one of them came up with the bright idea of hoodwinking the vegetable-selling housewives who always passed by the road they were sitting beside.
Shyam took off his cap, passed a large needle through it for everyone to see and bumped into one of the housewives. She was carrying a doko full of cucumbers, and had clearly not expected to come across a Damai on her way to the market. “The tailor touched your cucumbers. You cannot sell them now,” shouted Shyam’s friends from their warm spots around the fire, and the woman did not know what to do. She must have been an unassuming lady, for she said to Shyam, “You might as well take all the cucumbers. I can neither sell them nor eat them now.”
Perfect to play his part, Shyam assumed an innocent tone and chanted, “Glory to Lord Krishna the great!” and took the cucumbers from the woman.
Shyam and his friends then distributed their booty amongst themselves in a peculiar sort of silence. Since Shyam had played a major part in securing the cucumbers, he got some extra ones for his effort. While some of the boys began munching on their cucumbers right there, others decided to save all of theirs for lunch. Still others were planning on pickling their share of the cucumbers.
From then onwards, the group of young men began performing similar stunts on a regular basis. It was only a matter of time before the housewives figured something fishy was going on though. They caught Shyam one morning and then found out he wasn’t even an untouchable.
I do not know what lesson any other group would have learnt from this, but this particular village continued on its old ways, and Shyam... well, he disappeared. I have no idea where Shyam moved to, but I’m pretty certain he’s still tricking men and women in villages all around the country.
- Sudip Sharma
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