LAND IS CASTE, SEA IS FREEDOM

Yogesh Maitreya

1.

The year was 1878. It was June. The rain was falling heavily that night. The bungalow of Mr. Sheffield and his sister Emma was gleaming with yellow light. A year ago, they had arrived in Nagpur – he was an army officer appointed by the East India Company, and her as a school teacher.

When off duty, Mr. Sheffield met with Mahar people, spent time with them, and often enjoyed what they cooked, noting down their lives. Mahars are excellent cooks. Because of his association with Mahars, he was disliked in the British administration.

The sound of rain, which he could hear from his window, was tuning rhythmically with the idea of a poem in his head. For a while, he was thinking of writing a long poem on water. Ever since he had read the words of Buddha in which ‘water’ recurs as dominant imagery or metaphor, he became irrefutably interested in exploring many meanings of water. That night of rain was one more opportunity for him to dwell deep into the many meanings of water in the life of the people he had seen. As Sheffield thought of this, he heard a sound of heavy knocks on his door.

‘Mr. Sheffield, it is me, Asura.’

Mr. Sheffield opened the door.

Thunder and lightning made it difficult for Mr. Sheffield to recognise Asura’s voice and face for a second, but then, he stepped a little forward and saw Asura’s face, drenched with fear. A few things are unable to be washed by water, Mr. Sheffield thought in his mind for a second.

‘Asura, what happened to you?! What are these red stains on your clothes?’ Mr. Sheffield said as he sensed something wrong.

‘Mr. Sheffield, I will tell you. Can I come in? I ran for fifty kilometres to reach here.’

Mr. Sheffield ushered him inside. Asking him to be calm, he went inside to fetch a cloth for Asura.

A few minutes passed and Asura began to narrate the story behind the red stains on his clothes.

2.

Asura’s father had owned a small piece of land in the very old village called Anityabagh, in the Vidarbha region which was then under the administration of Central Provinces and Berar. He was one of the first Mahars to join the army from his village. When he was retired from the service, the British administration then allotted him a small piece of land as a pension. In a little time, Asura’s father had become known for cultivating good quality rice and cotton.

The dominant caste villagers (Kunbis) became jealous as rice cultivated by him grew in demand. So one day, they decided to come and buy the land from him. He refused. That small piece of land and his labour were the only things in his life that assured him a life with dignity. The villagers persisted and later tried to threaten him. Asura’s father was not a man who could give up easily. He resisted them. The villagers could not see that a man whose ancestors were dependent on them for survival was now living with dignity.

One night, they went to Asura’s father’s land, and burnt the fully bloomed cotton, a crop Asura’s father cultivated after the season of rice. The next morning, when Asura’s father saw it, his heart was broken. The white cotton was burnt to ashes. It was like someone had burnt his people alive. The villagers came for him the next night and, though he fought bravely, Asura’s father was dead by morning.

3.

Asura took an axe to avenge his father’s murder and there was blood on his hands. Realising what he had done was an act of justice because there was no justice for his people, he decided to run away, to wait and take more revenge when the time came. Asura knew that no one in the villages would help him hide. He could only take refuge with Mr. Sheffield.

Mr. Sheffield was aware of all the violence Mahars were subjected to. He was also aware of their capacity to resist that injustice. On several occasions, he offered Asura to come to his residence in Nagpur and work there as a cook. Asura always refused with a smile. Now blood on his hands, bloodstains on his clothes and blood in his heart, he could not think of any other person to help him. Asura ran for fifty kilometres from his village to Mr. Sheffield’s bungalow in Nagpur, while the rain cleansed him.

4.

Some days have passed. Asura became accustomed to activities at the bungalow. His feeling of revenge was gradually being replaced by a sense of belonging.

‘Mr. Sheffield, may I ask you something?’ Asura said one day.

‘Yes, Asura. Tell me.’ Mr. Sheffield responded with a curious smile, while sitting at his study.

‘Mr. Sheffield, since you are writing a poem on water, may I ask what do you think about the role of land, the soil, in our society? I saw people being killed for it.’ 

‘Well, Asura.’ Mr Sheffield grew contemplative and said, ‘for thousands of years, land and water, both have been crucial. Both of them feed us and help us survive. If you have ever travelled by sea, you would understand that, land is immovable. Sea is floating. Land feeds us. Sea demands. Land binds us. Sea frees us from fear. Land is nostalgia. Sea is belonging.’

‘I have seen the powerful say that travelling by sea pollutes the person. Do you think, the powerful are scared of people attaining freedom?’ The curiosity in Asura's voice now stimulated Mr. Sheffield’s imagination.

‘Asura, I think you are right. Oppression is multilayered. In caste-society, Brahmins are scared of Shudras and Untouchables migrating to a place where they would cease to be a part of caste-society. When you travel across the sea and explore other lands, your idea of life and your sense of freedom expands because everywhere you see people of different customs and cultures making their lives in different ways. There, your social prejudices come to an end and you realise that travelling, like a stream of water, frees you from the rigidity of land.’

‘Yes, Mr. Sheffield. I think the purpose of caste is to bind you to a place where you do not want to be. My father was killed for owning a land and cultivating it. The powerful wanted us to live life on their mercy. One of the reasons they are oppressive is because they own an abundance of land and wealth, which is non-transferable to other castes. They killed my father because he dared to own land and cultivate it. He freed himself in the matter of livelihood. I think, for an Untouchable, migrating like a stream of water, is the only way of freedom. Because, as you said, land is nostalgia and for Untouchables, living with this nostalgia is becoming more and more unfree.’

In this dialogue, Asura was exploring a kind of freedom he had never experienced before. In these words, he could imagine himself, his mind, his heart, his ideas, and he would utter, ‘I can think and I can imagine many possibilities of life and I am not inferior to anyone.’

 5.

A few days later, Asura fell into a long conversation with Emma.

‘Asura, may I ask you something?’ Emma one day said while tragedy, the violence which took place in his life, was a shadow in her mind.

‘Yes, Miss Emma.’

‘Are you still seeking revenge for your father’s murder?’

‘Miss Emma,’ he said, ‘What has happened with my father was purely out of casteist hate. Living with dignity does not harm anyone. But in this place, an Untouchable is punished for that. I know that there won’t be any justice for me here. Besides, whenever I write now, I feel like I am beyond the feeling of revenge. I am many feelings. What will I become, if I am done with revenge? Thinking about this, I feel scared. I want to rise above this fear.”

‘I understand. It is not easy for anyone to rise above the feeling of revenge and hate. Besides, I always felt that writing helps us move beyond reactive life. But I have rarely seen people who could discover in writing what you have discovered: the ability to transcend difficulties into freedom. I hope you are getting to learn more about poetry from my brother.’

As a teacher, Emma knew the importance of education. But she had rarely witnessed the depth of words which could lead a person to develop a sense of freedom. Apart from her attraction to Asura, she could avoid, thinking, that she was learning from a person who was despised by the powerful nearby.

As she left the room, she turned and said, ‘Asura, could you stop by my room later?’  

‘Yes, Miss Emma.’ Asura said like he always did.

Their hearts beat faster.

6.

Asura hesitated when she touched him. It was more than love, for Asura. It was the affirmation of his humanness.

7.

Over breakfast, the next morning Emma said to Mr. Sheffield.

‘I want to take Asura with me to England when we leave next month and live there forever. I know that it will be hard. But I know who Asura truly is. I know life will be difficult there, but life is not easy here too, at least not for him. I want to live free.’

‘As you wish. It will be difficult for him in England. It will be a completely different life for him. We all will sail together.’

8. 

Mr. Sheffield, Emma and Asura left from Nagpur railway station to Bombay. The gaze of others was upon them, designed to intimidate and threaten. It was the first time Asura stepped on a train. He felt as if he was being transported to another world. When they reached Bombay, the land of sea, the port city, he arrived in a city where people came with dreams. A dream of freedom. This city was on land, but it felt like water to Asura.

Land is nostalgia, sea is longing, he uttered in his mind, repeating Mr. Sheffield’s words to himself. This sea was his witness. Like land, he left his caste behind too.

He stood at the deck, looking all around at the ocean, its waves, its sound. He was thinking.

Emma came at the deck and put a hand on his shoulder.

‘What are you thinking, Asura?’ he asked. 

‘Land is caste, sea is freedom.’