FourBrothers
There were four school-age kids in Maduvakkam village. People called
them Madaiyan (Madhavan), Sadaiyan (Seshaiyan), Komban (Govindan) and
Sumban (Sundaram). Roughly translated, they meant Dolt, Matted hair,
Dunce and Fool. They belonged to a lower caste, which might have been
the reason they received the pejorative monikers. The names did not
bother the children because they were used to monikers as matter of
upper caste denigration of the lower castes, Dalits and tribals. They
could not change the behavior of the villagers, even if they tried. They
did well in their scholastic pursuits. Other children kept distance from
them because they wore rags, went to schools without footwears, were
thin from undernutrition, and had bad hair, bad breath and body odor.
They brushed their teeth with twigs broken off medicinal Neem trees
(Azadirachta indica =
வேம்பு).
The taste of the twig is bitter. More often they used the twig from
Acacia nilotica (Babul) available abundantly in the villages. The
villagers sold these six-inch long twigs for pittance. The user chews
the end of the stick to a fine fiber and used it as a toothbrush. It is
a use-once toothbrush. Some children cut off the end and used it again.
For soap and shampoo, the children used powdered Soap-pod wattle (Acacia
concinna =
சீகைகாய் =
சீகை+காய் =
hair + fruit). They used to come out of bath smelling like the powdered
soap-pod. The children used old dog-eared textbooks discarded by the
well-to-do children from a previous batch. They picked up discarded
pencils shorter than their pinkies. Their parents were not hesitant to
accept the old clothes from the rich villagers. Both parents worked as
day laborers (coolies). The villagers treated the children and parents
well not because they believed in equality, but because they did not
want the quality of work to suffer because of bad treatment of their
children.
The parents used to receive grains, rice, and other provisions as wages
besides regular cash and gifts. They lived well though they could not
afford going to town for fun and frolic. They lived in a humble house
with mud walls and thatched roof far away from the upper-caste families.
In the one-room school, they sat separately. They, like all other
children, ate the same food for midday meals. They brought their own
utensils because the upper-caste parents would not allow communal dining
with utensils shared by the Dalit children. The indigent children played
by themselves. They were well-adjusted, smiling and happy. They also
learnt from their parents not to look into the higher-caste person in
the eyes. They had to avoid eye contact because eye contact would
establish a relationship of equality, physical closeness and feared
sexuality (if the Dalit was a teenager or adult). There were no bathroom
facilities for any caste in the school premises. If ever they had
toilets, it would be segregated toilets. They defecated and urinated in
the open fields and wash their bottoms in the channels with running
water in the fields.
The teacher was a fair-minded Brahmin born and brought up in the
village, with a university degree, a feather in his cap. Though he was
of the highest caste in the Indian Varna system, he treated all children
equally and marked their papers fairly. He would praise the child for
his or her good performance. The indigent children received accolades
for excellent schoolwork from the teacher as other children did.
Once one of the indigent children developed a fever and had chills. He
was in need of immediate treatment, and the public hospital doctor was
five miles away. The higher-caste parents immediately withdrew the
children from the school, and no one offered to take the child to the
doctor. The parents did not have transportation, and the village buses
never ever kept the schedules.
The Brahmin teacher felt the obligation to render help to the helpless.
The villagers had no objection. The teacher took the child in his
bullock cart to the town and admitted the child to the hospital, where
he was treated for typhoid. The cart was padded with straw so his germs
would stay with the straw. The teacher gathered the straw and burnt it,
as a precautionary measure.
He made a full recovery and was brought back to the village after two
weeks by his parents. In the meantime, the whole village was immunized
for typhoid. Luckily, in the month, no one came down with typhoid. The
parents and brothers were very thankful to the teacher for his yeoman
help. When things were falling apart in the village, they all pulled
together to help one another, irrespective of caste and status. The
villagers knew that calamities did not make targeted visitation only on
the Dalits but on all castes. That was not the case in every village.
The villagers were forward-looking people; there were college-educated
parents, who lived in the village and take care of their lands.
Actually, they were going back and forth between the nearby town and the
village. When the time came to go from one-room school to a
better-equipped school, they sent the children to the town.
When the indigent eldest son was ready to move to the town for his
further studies, his paternal uncle in the town offered to take him.
Though he was called Madaiyan, his real name was Madhavan. He was doing
well in the school. He had better clothes, shoes... from his uncle and
parents. In the school, there was a mandatory recording of a student's
caste, religion..., which were kept away from the prying eyes of other
parents, teachers, aides, and others. No one in the town noticed or
enquired about his caste. At last, he broke away from humiliation and
shed the moniker.
There was a forest between the town and the village. There was no way to
avoid the forest path to the town, Mandalam. It was so named because the
main streets were laid out as spokes on the wheel going from the center
of town to the outskirts with a circular beltway connecting all the
streets. The center was the business district. Adjoining to the center
were the rich peoples' homes. At the periphery were the homes of the
less fortunate and the less privileged.
The town had many religious denominations, mostly Hindus and a motley of
people like Tribals, Muslims, Buddhists, Jains, out of state visitors
and retired British public servants. The Hindus commonly fell into one
of six groups: Ganapathiyas, Kaumaras, Saivas, Sakthas, Sauras, and
Vaishnavas (= The worshippers of Ganesa; Kumara, Muruga or Skanda; Siva;
Mother Goddess; Sun; and Vishnu). These were the different sects as
classified by Sankara. Most of the Hindus worshiped all of them. There
were die-hards and blowhards whose devotion rested only to a particular
Hindu deity. There was no piped-in water supply or indoor plumbing. Most
had either well water or lake water for cooking, cleaning and bathing.
The lake or pond was a man-made humongous pit in the ground, which
collected rainwater and was fed by a humongous canal that collected the
rainwater from the city and suburbs. There were debris and fecal
contamination of the water from open-air defecation. The weather ranged
from hot, hotter to hottest interspersed with some cool interludes in
the rainy season. The well water was brackish. Servants, women and
children used to fetch water from the pond, which went almost dry during
the height of summer. The health-conscious boiled their water before
drinking. Most did not. Some had the sense to harvest rainwater for
storage in concrete sumps. The schools and college were strategically
located to serve the public. The teaching staff at the college by a
little more than half were Brahmins, and the rest were non-Brahmins. In
Christian schools, half the teachers were Indian Christians.
There was no industry. There was a thriving livestock market in the
outskirts of the town. There was no sanitation as we know now. Most
effluents and sewage flowed in the roadside concrete trenches and
collected in concrete sumps outside the house. A municipal worker with a
bullock-drawn cart with a wine barrel look-alike but larger would
collect the sewage and dump it outside the town, where the tall grass
grew and thrived on the organic matter. The sewage sumps and the sewage
canals were the breeding area for the mosquitoes. Again, a municipal
worker would go around town spraying oil over the sewage in the sump and
roadside canals so the larvae suffocate and die.
Most of the Hindus were vegetarians. Some non-vegetarian Hindus worried
about sick cows ending up in the meat stalls, and the Muslims worried
about pork contamination of their meat. There was no animus between
Hindus and Muslims. The Muslims were mostly in the tanning industry.
Health-conscious vegetarians ate in "Brahmin-run eateries" where they
can be sure that no meat was cooked and served, and the fare was
reasonably hygienic. Where they served meat products were called
"Military hotels or eateries." Chicken was the common meat preparation
followed by sheep, goat...
There were very many temples catering to the spiritual needs of the
populace. They were the places where exponents of Hindu religion
conducted their Kalakshepams (=
காலக்ஷேபம்
kāla-ksēpam = Exposition of devotional stories with music). People
celebrated many festivals; the most popular ones were the Festival of
Lights (தீபாவளி)
and Harvest Festival (பொங்கல்).
Coming back to our Dalit Student Madaiyan (Madhavan),
he received scholarship for books, fees and living expenses paid for by
the Government, with an active program to support, preserve, protect and
advance disadvantaged students from tribal and oppressed classes. It was
a good thing. He went on to the law college and graduated with
distinction. He became a politician, was elected by the people and
served them well. He moved easily with the former oppressors, Brahmins
and all other castes. He remained a bachelor.
Sadaiyan (Seshaiyan) went to
agricultural college and became a public servant in the state
Government. Only his close fellow workers knew his caste or below-caste
status. Others had no clue. He married another Dalit girl with a college
education, who became a teacher.
Komban (Govindan) was the smartest of
all and that is why the village elders called him Komban. Govindan on
public assistance went to college and graduated as a doctor in Medicine
and instead of going into specialty education, he set up a practice
right in the town. Initially, people were reluctant to go to the Dalit
doctor and be touched by him. General attitude was Dalit's touch was
polluting. He could not even hire an office assistant to serve at the
front desk. There was no suitable Dalit girl to fill the position. With
that disadvantage, he ran the practice alone by himself. There were
liberals and broad-minded people within the community. Iyengars were the
first ones of the highest caste to accept him as their doctor and
supported him with no reservation. Some of the Iyengars -the true
Vishnavas- believed all people were equal. A true SriVaishnava (Uttama
Bhaktha) is liberated from caste encumbrances. Without the burden of
caste, he serves the people of all castes; this sets the way for him to
serve mankind.
Vishnavas classified the Vishnu followers into three types: Kanishtha
Bhakthas, Madhyama Bhaktas, and Uttama Bhaktas. Kanishtha = Neophyte.
Madhyama = Middling. Uttama = Highest. Bhaktha = devotee.
Kanishtha Bhakthas are the idol worshippers, childish, innocent and
clouded by ignorance.
Madhyama Bhakthas ignores the hate mongers, serve others with friendship
and show true and exclusive (ananya) love for Bhagavan Krishna.
Uttama Bhakthas are the true devotees of Bhagavan Krishna and sees the
Supersoul in all beings and matter. They serve all beings irrespective
of caste, race or religion.
The Dalit doctor was fortunate enough to have Uttama Bhakthas of Iyengar
caste as his first patients. Where Brahmins go, others go; what Brahmins
eat, others eat; what Brahmins do, others do. Sanskritisation spread
from north to south first to the Brahmins and later upper castes and
still later lower castes. The Iyengars took the doctor to temples which
barred entry to the Dalits. When the priest's family brings the Dalit
doctor to the temple, resistance dissipates quickly. The doctor had a
thriving practice as time went by. He never forgot his humble origins.
He treated the deserving poor people at no cost.
The last brother was Sumban (Sundaram).
He studied anthropology and religion. Eventually, he was to become the
curator of the local museum in the town. He went about the town and
surrounding villages talking to children what an education can do for
them.
Pejorative Monikers of the four Dalit children:
Dolt:
மடையன்
or Madaiyan =
மாதவன் =
Madhavan = Name of Bhagavan Krishna;
One with Matted hair =சடையன்
or Sadaiyan =
சேஷையன் =
Seshaiyan = Name of the snake whose coils serve as the bed of Vishnu;
Dunce =
கொம்பன்
or Komban =
கோவிந்தன் =
Govinda, Name of Krishna;
Fool:
சும்பன்
or Sumban =
சுந்தரம் =
Sundaram = the Beautiful.
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