Mamta Kalia
Mamta Kalia Mamta Kalia
Send him to school tomorrow.’ The next day I went to school with fear stalking my heart. I sat in the class in trepidation. Every second I worried that the headmaster was coming... Now he comes... At the slightest sound my heart pounded. After a few days, things calmed down. But my heart trembled the moment I saw headmaster Kaliram. It seemed as though it wasn’t a teacher who was coming towards me but a snorting wild boar with his snout up in the air. At harvest time, all the people in our neighbourhood used to go to the field of the Tagas to reap the crop. Cutting the sheaves of wheat in the midday sun is a very hard and painful task. The sun pouring on your head. Fiery hot ground underneath. The roots of the cropped wheat plants pricked your feet like spikes. The roots of mustard and gram lentils hurt even more. The harvesting of these lentils presented an extra difficulty. The leaves are sour and stick all over the body during harvesting. Even bathing does not get rid of them completely Most of the reapers were from the untouchable castes of the Chuhras or Chamars. They had clothes on their bodies in name only. There was no question of shoes on their feet. Their bare feet got badly injured by the time the crop was brought in. The harvesting would often lead to arguments in the fields. Most of the Tagas were miserly when it came to paying wages. The reapers were helpless. Whatever they got, they took after protesting a bit. They kept fretting after 12 :: April-June 2010 coming back home, cursing the Tagas. But their protests died when confronted with hunger. Every year there would be a meeting in the neighbourhood at harvest time. People swore to demand one sheaf out of sixteen as wages. But all the resolutions passed at the meetings evaporated in thin air the moment harvesting began. They got one sheaf for cutting twenty-one as wages. One sheaf had less than a kilo of grain. Even the heaviest sheaf did not yield a kilo of wheat. That is, a day’s wage wasn’t worth even a kilo of wheat. After the harvesting, the grain had to be loaded on bullock or buffalo carts and unloaded. Neither money nor grain was given for that work. Sooner or later all of us had to drive the bullocks on the threshing floor, again without payment. In those days there were no threshers for cleaning up the wheat. The bullocks would be taken round and round to break down the sheaves into straw. Then the grain would be separated from the chaff by blowing it in a winnow. It was very long and tiring work, performed mostly by Chamars or Chuhras. Along with these field labours, my mother also cleaned the baithaks and the ghers of eight or ten Tagas, both Hindus and Muslims. My sister, elder bhabhi–sister–in-law-and my two brothers, Jasbir and Janesar, helped my mother in this work. The older brother, Sukhbir, worked for the Tagas like a permanent servant. Every Taga would have ten to fifteen animals in his cowshed. Their dung had to be picked up and brought to the
place where uplas or cow dung cakes were made. There would be five to six baskets of dung to be taken out from every cowshed. During the winter months it was a very painful job. The cows, buffaloes and bullocks would be tethered in long hallways. The floor would be covered with the dry leaves of cane or straw. The dung and the urine of the animals would spread all over the floor overnight. The matting would be changed after ten or fifteen days. Or sometimes a layer of dry leaves would be added on top of the soiled one. To search for dung in the stinking cowsheds was extremely unpleasant. The stink made one feel faint. To compensate us for all this work, we got five seers of grain per two animals; that is, about two and a half kilos of grain. Each Taga household with ten animals gave twenty-five seers of grain a year-about twelve to fifteen kilos, a leftover roti at noon every day, specially made by mixing the flour with husk since it was for the Chuhras. Sometimes the joothan, the scraps, would also be put in the basket with the rotis for us. During a wedding, when the guests and the baratis, the bridegroom’s party, were eating their meals, the Chuhras would sit outside with huge baskets. After the baratis had eaten, the dirty pattals or leaf-plates were put in the Chuhras’ baskets, which they took home, to save the joothan sticking to them. The little pieces of pooris, bits of sweetmeats, and a little bit of vegetable were enough to make them happy. The joothan was eaten with a lot of relish. The bridegroom’s guests who didn’t leave enough scraps on their pattals were denounced as gluttons. Poor things, they had never enjoyed a wedding feast. So they had licked it all up. During the marriage season, our elders narrated, in thrilled voices, stories of the baratis that had left several months of joothan. The pieces of pooris that were collected from the pattals were dried in the sun. A cloth would be spread on a charpai to dry them. Often I would be placed on guard duty because the drying pooris attracted crows, hens and dogs. Even a moment’s lapse and the pooris would vanish. Hence, one would have to sit near the cot with a stick in hand. These dried up pooris were very useful during the hard days of the rainy season. They would be soaked in water and then boiled. The boiled pooris were delicious with finely ground red chilli pepper and salt. Sometimes they were mixed with gur or molasses, to make a gruel and this dish was eaten with great delight. When I think about all those things today, thorns begin to prick my heart. What sort of a life was that? After working hard day and night, the price of our sweat was just joothan. And yet no one had any grudges. Or shame. Or repentance. When I was a young boy, I used to go with my parents to help them out. Looking at the food of the Tagas, I would wonder why we never got to eat food like that. When I think of those days today, I feel nauseated. This past year, Sukhdev Singh Tyagi’s April-June 2010 :: 13
- Page 1 and 2: A Journal of Mahatma Gandhi Antarra
- Page 3 and 4: Contents Focus LANGUAGE DISCOURSE W
- Page 5 and 6: Editor's Note Those who have a pass
- Page 7 and 8: Focus JOOTHAN Om Prakash Valmiki Tr
- Page 9 and 10: unwarranted. Ram Singh and Sukkhan
- Page 11: angry that his dense moustache was
- Page 15 and 16: He had entered the cowsheds of the
- Page 17 and 18: that she kept with great care with
- Page 19 and 20: to lose touch with those companions
- Page 21 and 22: It rained a lot in the year 1962. A
- Page 23 and 24: was cooked at home, we all got very
- Page 25 and 26: Discourse JOOTHAN: A DALIT LITERARY
- Page 27 and 28: in the present. These are memories
- Page 29 and 30: sun and the needle pricks of the sh
- Page 31 and 32: as well as the rhetorical use of th
- Page 33 and 34: he used to come to our house in Alm
- Page 35 and 36: although drawing its special charac
- Page 37 and 38: the forests, or the discovery of la
- Page 39 and 40: oth the above-mentioned tendencies
- Page 41 and 42: enterprising elements with more cap
- Page 43 and 44: quite opposite to them. This has on
- Page 45 and 46: considerable “reverse flow”, th
- Page 47 and 48: on the basis of a new model. This n
- Page 49 and 50: Our mind Clouds with the din of Loo
- Page 51 and 52: He’s not born in any castle- In t
- Page 53 and 54: Such Is The Time Such is this time
- Page 55 and 56: manning machines returning home, af
- Page 57 and 58: I have to tell them each time that
- Page 59 and 60: Said—I used to love this man. Had
- Page 61 and 62: Poetry FIVE POEMS Nilesh Raghuvansh
Send him to school tomorrow.’<br />
The next day I went to school with<br />
fear stalking my heart. I sat in the class<br />
in trepidation. Every second I worried<br />
that the headmaster was coming... Now<br />
he comes... At the slightest sound my<br />
heart pounded. After a few days, things<br />
calmed down. But my heart trembled<br />
the moment I saw headmaster Kaliram.<br />
It seemed as though it wasn’t a teacher<br />
who was coming towards me but a<br />
snorting wild boar with his snout up<br />
in the air.<br />
At harvest time, all the people in<br />
our neighbourhood used to go to the<br />
field of the Tagas to reap the crop. Cutting<br />
the sheaves of wheat in the midday sun<br />
is a very hard and painful task. The<br />
sun pouring on your head. Fiery hot<br />
ground underneath. The roots of the<br />
cropped wheat plants pricked your feet<br />
like spikes. The roots of mustard and<br />
gram lentils hurt even more. The<br />
harvesting of these lentils presented an<br />
extra difficulty. The leaves are sour and<br />
stick all over the body during harvesting.<br />
Even bathing does not get rid of them<br />
completely Most of the reapers were<br />
from the untouchable castes of the<br />
Chuhras or Chamars. They had clothes<br />
on their bodies in name only. There<br />
was no question of shoes on their feet.<br />
Their bare feet got badly injured by<br />
the time the crop was brought in.<br />
The harvesting would often lead to<br />
arguments in the fields. Most of the Tagas<br />
were miserly when it came to paying<br />
wages. The reapers were helpless.<br />
Whatever they got, they took after<br />
protesting a bit. They kept fretting after<br />
12 :: April-June 2010<br />
coming back home, cursing the Tagas.<br />
But their protests died when confronted<br />
with hunger. Every year there would<br />
be a meeting in the neighbourhood at<br />
harvest time. People swore to demand<br />
one sheaf out of sixteen as wages. But<br />
all the resolutions passed at the meetings<br />
evaporated in thin air the moment<br />
harvesting began. They got one sheaf<br />
for cutting twenty-one as wages. One<br />
sheaf had less than a kilo of grain. Even<br />
the heaviest sheaf did not yield a kilo<br />
of wheat. That is, a day’s wage wasn’t<br />
worth even a kilo of wheat. After the<br />
harvesting, the grain had to be loaded<br />
on bullock or buffalo carts and unloaded.<br />
Neither money nor grain was given for<br />
that work. Sooner or later all of us had<br />
to drive the bullocks on the threshing<br />
floor, again without payment. In those<br />
days there were no threshers for cleaning<br />
up the wheat. The bullocks would be<br />
taken round and round to break down<br />
the sheaves into straw. Then the grain<br />
would be separated from the chaff by<br />
blowing it in a winnow. It was very<br />
long and tiring work, performed mostly<br />
by Chamars or Chuhras.<br />
Along with these field labours, my<br />
mother also cleaned the baithaks and<br />
the ghers of eight or ten Tagas, both<br />
Hindus and Muslims. My sister, elder<br />
bhabhi–sister–in-law-and my two<br />
brothers, Jasbir and Janesar, helped my<br />
mother in this work. The older brother,<br />
Sukhbir, worked for the Tagas like a<br />
permanent servant.<br />
Every Taga would have ten to fifteen<br />
animals in his cowshed. Their dung had<br />
to be picked up and brought to the