8; INTELLECTUAL CENTRE

INTELLECTUAL CENTRE 

The Madhumati gave the impression of being the intellectual centre of the town, frequented by young men of outstandingly liberal views, with advanced opinions on such controversial matters as arranged marriages, the dowry system, caste, and the abolition of the inequalities from which the women of India suffered. 

We were seated in the hotel's somewhat austere dining room, furnished with a sideboard piled with empty bottles, and plain tables spread with rumpled cloths in preparation for the evening meal. An open serving hatch afforded glimpses of the arriving wedding guests in their corruscating gear [shiny clothes etc.], trying one after another to make urgent calls on a phone that did not work. No one in the Madhumati dared complain at the spectacle of beer being drunk openly in one of the public rooms, as it was here by a group of young men at the table next but one - although they had screened the bottles behind a fence of the hotel's large menu cards, offering in reality little but chicken and chips.

(p. 249-250)

TWO BRAHMINS: Ranjan and Anand Gopal

Ranjan had been joined by an old friend he had run into here by chance. Anand Gopal, now an inspector in the Department of Works, was from a high-caste background and the possessor of an exceptionally fair skin* endowed by forebears who watched over such attributes as jealously as they did their wealth. It was the sight of the public beer-drinkers that sparked off the topic. Anand, now twenty-nine, said that he had only been allowed to drink water up to twenty-five years of age. Tea was banned until then as excessively stimulating, and he had only drunk it in secret and as a guilty indulgence. 

'How do you feel about such prohibitions now?' Ranjan asked. 

'I am unable to acquire a taste for beer, but I move with the times.'

'Have they arranged a marriage for you yet?'

'I am not permitting it,' Anand said.

'But many years ago there were some discussions. This I remember.'

'Nothing came of them. My father sent many letters to friends and some leads were established. It all fizzled out. I was opposed to anything that was suggested.'

'You are a difficult fellow,' Ranjan told him.

'I am not difficult. It was against my thinking. You see I am progressive.'

'So now what is happening?'

'Nothing is happening. There is an agency called Life Partners. My father was in touch with them secretly but I would not co-operate. I am as free as the air. They were proposing ten lakhs of rupees as dowry for a lady with eastern features*, but I am not prepared to be sold like a calf in the market. If there is a lady with whom I can share an ideal, that is a different matter.'

'I am of your opinion. Absolutely,' Ranjan said.

We were interrupted by a group of hotel regulars who came in carrying a television set. While watching an instalment of a religious epic in the television room, they had been disturbed by the invasion of the wedding party. The set was plugged in next to the sideboard, and with a garland placed round it out of respect to the spiritual message embodied in the programme, it was switched on. 

'And there is no present activity for you on that front?' Anand asked.

'For the moment there is none. I am awaiting developments. This is a problem I may discuss with you, but no decision has been reached.'

'Take your time and consider carefully,' Anand said. 'We are defending principles.'

This being the kind of discussion it was, the enmeshments of caste were bound to come up, and condemnation by these two Brahmins of the system which had favoured them was a foregone conclusion. Had there been any real improvement in this direction since Gandhi had admitted the untouchables to worship in the temple back in 1938? Ranjan thought not much. Now blandly renamed Children of God, they were still condemned by custom if not by force to dismount from their bicycles and wheel them through his native village. In rural areas he knew of they were still likely to be stoned if they attempted to draw their drinking water from the village well, and had to drink from the tank in which clothing was washed and buffaloes cooled their skin in the mud, unless a higher caste villager could be persuaded to draw their water. Anand agreed with Ranjan. In the past days a television news item from Rajasthan had reported the case of a harijan, determined to ride a horse to his wedding, being set on and lynched by a hostile crowd, along with five of his supporting friends. 

(p. 250-252) 

MIRA AND ANITA

Had I seen anything of the recent caste atrocities in Bihar? I was asked, and my reply was that as a foreigner I would not have expected to, but I had talked to people and read the newspapers.

I told them about Mira Kumari, daughter of a high-caste family of Loyabad, Bihar, who eloped with a low-caste suitor, Satyendra Singh, and was secretly married to him. Mira was carried off, and subjected to thrashings in an attempt to induce her to remarry. The family hired four killers to drag Satyendra away to a quiet place and cut his head off.

'And what was the outcome?' Anand asked.

'There wasn't one. The chief of police said, "I don't recognise this marriage. After all, ours is an Indian culture."'

'I am not wishing to visit this place,' Anand said. 'Did they kill the girl, too?'

'No, they just kept up the beatings for eighteen months. In Patna Anita Pandey came off worse. She married out of caste, and her father had her abducted by a gang who broke her arm, scarred her for life, damaged an eye, and bored an inch deep hole in her back. After that she was shut up in a home for fallen women in Patna.'

'But this is impossible if she is legally married,' Ranjan objected. 'In that case her husband may set her free.' 

'Her father produced a certificate in court,' I told him, 'giving her age as thirteen. This was intended to give him custody.'

'And this was true?'

'No, it was found to be false, so she was released.'

'In this case,' Ranjan said, 'justice was done.'

'With some reluctance,' I said. 'Yes. I read about the case in a magazine which quoted interviews with people who could see the father's point of view. There was some talk of caste associations which place a ban on inter-caste marriages and imposed sanctions on members breaking the rules.'

'This is so,' Anand said. 'Even now, this is the case.'

The writer of the article seemed to feel fairly sympathetic towards the father himself. 'If he'd accepted his low-caste son-in-law, he said, he stood the risk of being ostracised by his caste-fellowship and being disinherited from the large family property.'

'It is true,' Anand said. 'To give example, even in my case I must move carefully. If I am in open revolt against our custom it is certain that my father will not disinherit me, but it is not so certain that I will be keeping my job. And if I lose this job, where in these times shall I find another?'

(p. 252-253)

*[SKIN COLOR, racial features, face, body height, body size, weight, age, etc., can be CHANGED, a truth that NAZIS try to suppress. - G]

*["Brahmins" RANJAN & ANAND GOPAL remind Me of Y and Z. - G]

[Broken English spoken by Ranjan and Anand Gopal is amusing.]

- NORMAN LEWIS: A GODDESS IN THE STONES - Travels in India (JONATHAN CAPE, LONDON)

NORMAN LEWIS 

George Eliot is said to be the male pen name of a top female novelist. I wonder if "Norman Lewis" is similarly the MALE pen name used by a great FEMALE writer, one of the world's greatest writers, who has been reincarnating for billions of years, in both female and male forms, and may be in C.B. under house arrest (which sounds extremely ridiculous & funny).

Ms. X = Norman Lewis?

Ms. Z could be Norman Lewis.

Kishalay Sinha কিশলয় সিনহা किशलय सिन्हा जी [G] April 26/27, 2024