Though the journey was tiring, the drive long and exhausting and the climate hostile, the reception at the terminal was spontaneous and warm. Deep in an inaccessible tribal-majority village of Rajasthan, a school with such commendable ambience and lavish space in a solid building was something of a surprise. I was ushered into a well-ventilated room on the first floor by a debonair six-footer in a flowing white robe, gracefully sporting a long beard with grey splashes. A couple of spiffy, similarly attired gentlemen joined us. A brief introduction. And I was promptly asked, nay earnestly pressed, to join as the Principal then and there. Such was the confidence, respect and esteem they reposed in His Excellency, their community head, stationed in Mumbai who sent me there, that not a query of apprehension was raised about the remuneration they were expected to give me — which was about three times what these skin-flint gentlemen had been paying the highest-earning member on their staff.
The initial week passed uneventfully. Then, one day, it was the lunch break on a dewy fresh and deceptively quiet winter morning. The school used to start at 7.30, leaving the hot and comparatively sweltering afternoons free for relaxation. I had just had my lunch. A peon passed by, and I called him in and told him to put away the lunch box in the washbasin for tidying up. “Na-Na”, he protested obsequiously, and walked away. Flummoxed, I wondered if there was any faux pas on my part. He had all along been extremely obliging. Why then suddenly this change?
That evening, during a tête-à-tête with the revered secretary saheb I brought up this matter. Flashing a knowing grin, he explained archly. He, a low-caste, can’t as much even ‘touch’ the lunch box of the Principal, a high-caste. So it was the height of reverence, and not disrespect, that made him refuse.
A week passed by after the lunch box incident. I was surrounded by teachers when an errand boy came in carrying a tray of tea to be distributed. But he went away without offering tea to the sweeper. I signalled to the boy reminding him of the oversight. “His cup is different,” someone squeamishly enlightened me with a streak of meanness. Dumbfounded, I decided to go into the story of the school tea.
There were three ways the school tea was made and served — a Muslim tea, a Hindu and Christian tea, and a low-caste tea. I was flabbergasted. Each member of the staff had to pay an amount fixed accordingly. There were even Muslim samosas and Hindu samosas ! I passed an order. “No more payment for tea. The school shall foot the bill. The tea shall be made in common but may be served the way they like.” It was a coup of sorts. Some furtively murmured; appreciated, and a few were overwhelmed.
I am talking of the enlightened dawn of the new millennium, not the dark ages of the 18th century, mind you. And this is India, our own Bhaarat Mahaan . No wonder the other day, on September 21, 2014, 11 Dalit cousins were expelled from a school in Bikaner, the educational capital of Rajasthan, for ‘defiling’ the drinking water of a high-caste gentleman.
All along I had been pampered to think that in the India of Vivekananda, Gandhi and Nehru such things do not happen. I was wrong. Even in today’s India, I am still wrong in my perception of Bhaarat Mahaan . That is what September 21, 2014 reaffirms.
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