 | Guest Column Raj Kumar |
It is indeed fearful to recollect those three fateful years of my high school life. Those three years from 1980 to 1983 were quite a scary period of my life. Did I say 'scary'? Yes, because it was virtually a ‘do or die’ situation for me, for my family and for my community. Even a little drifting away from my targeted goal could have resulted in terrible consequences for me. Life would have been perhaps entirely different from what it is today. I would have been elsewhere, not in the place where I proudly stand today. Fortunately, that did not happen.
I clearly remember a lot of things did happen in those three years - from the beginning to the end. I had just passed my seventh class Board examination. My parents were reluctant to send me to high school. So I had not thought about my next course of action. It was summer. There was hardly any work at home. So we had plenty of time to talk, think and decide about my future.
It was on one of those summer days that a group of teachers came to our village Baigapada from the nearby village of Mahulpada, covering nearly five kilometres to search for ‘talented’ students who could be admitted into their newly established high school. The teachers were all young and socially committed. I do not know how they came to know about me since socially, I was an outcaste and there was hardly any social interaction between my community and the so-called upper caste people of my village. My happiness knew no bounds when they took my certificate and instantly gave me admission in their school. Even today, I really do not remember whether I paid the requisite admission fees or not. My parents were too poor to pay the school fees, even though it was a very small amount at that time.
Today I understand why I could not pay my school fees. Sociologically, I happen to come from a poor Dalit community from the erstwhile Kalahandi district of Orissa whose members are looked down upon by caste society, even to this day. We are known as untouchables by the self-proclaimed upper castes and are treated like street dogs and cats. Since caste-society systematically denied our basic human rights, we had no choice but to do menial jobs and survive somehow. That is why education was not our forte. However, from the very beginning of my life, I wanted to be a schoolteacher so that our family would have some economic security. But my parents, unlike their upper-caste counterparts, never at any point of time encouraged me to go to school. After facing successive years of droughts and famines, they had no means to support the fancy of their elder child to get educated. They thought education was a luxury. Instead, they expected me to earn and help support the family.
Thus, going to school was based entirely on my own efforts. Of course, in later years my parents did realise the importance of education and started encouraging me. But they could not help in giving any formal training to their child since both of them were illiterate. As usual, I was left to myself. No one from my community came forward to help. It is little wonder that I happened to be the first person from my community to reach the high school level. Consequently, I had no predecessor to fall back upon for advice or moral support.
However, I received a lot of help from some of my schoolteachers and classmates. Perhaps they saw something worthwhile in me and generously came forward to help. The order of caste existed in our school. Except for the PET (Physical Education Teacher), all my teachers were Brahmins by caste. Likewise, a majority of students also came from the upper-caste strata. Thus, we the 'untouchables', who formed a minority, would sometimes face caste discrimination both inside and outside the classroom. Nevertheless, most of my teachers were large-hearted human beings. They taught us not just the syllabus but their idealism too. And this is precisely what made the difference. I believe whatever I am today has a lot to do with them. I can never forget the personal care and concern three of my teachers - Sri Janjesh Kumar Khamari, Sri Rama Krushna Panda and Sri Mahendra Kumar Pati - had shown towards me.
While the school cooperated with me in my struggle to get educated, there were several obstacles that I faced. Poverty was my most dreaded enemy. But once I realised that hunger and basic needs were my intimate companions, it was easy for me to befriend poverty. I developed a strong will-power. But mind you, I had hundreds of battles to fight daily. Today I cannot imagine how I managed with things at that time. I never had proper food, clothes or even a pair of slippers. I could not afford to buy books and notebooks, pens or pencils. But still, I managed somehow. I ate whatever was available at home and wore whatever my parents gave me. My teachers and classmates donated many of the things that I needed at school, my parents tried to arrange a few more and the rest I managed to procure through my own labour. On Sundays and holidays, I worked in the agricultural fields to earn some money. But I never neglected my studies. Once I set my goal, food or no food, clothes or no clothes, books or no books, my studies had to continue.
It is difficult today to imagine my struggles. For instance, everyday I would walk a good five kilometres to reach my school. There was no kuccha road those days. The really trying time was to go to high school during the monsoons. The roads would be covered with knee-deep muddy water, full of babul thorns and also stony. I had no slippers till I completed my high school. Walking on bare feet on such roads was surely dangerous. The fact that I have permanently lost two toenails speaks volumes.
I do not think I was a brilliant student. I was just average. But I did realise at that time that brilliant students were never born, they were made. Perhaps, it was my fault that I could not be made brilliant, or perhaps I never wanted to be so. I remember, those who were very good at mathematics were called brilliant and I hated mathematics. I liked social sciences and literature. Sanskrit was my favourite and I always topped my class in the subject. I am proud to have read this so-called ‘debabhasa’, the language of the gods. Because, according to Hindu law propounded by Manu in his famous Manu Samhita, the Shudras and women were prohibited from reading and writing Sanskrit. And if they violated this rule, they would be severely punished. How could I, an Ati-Shudra, be allowed to read and write such a sacred language? Perhaps the blame has to go to modern education, which has several such loopholes. Otherwise, in later years an untouchable like me would never have got a chance to qualify for the post of a college lecturer in a premier institution like Delhi University. Much of the credit, of course, goes to Mahulpada High School for grooming me. In its silver jubilee year, I would like to wish Mahulpada high school a happy, healthy and very long life.
