JAWLA

Was my native  place , Taluka Shegaon, District Buldhana in Vidharbh, part of the then Madhya Pradesh, now Maharashtra.

Jawla Budruk or BK was indeed a beautiful village with about 2500 heads, situated on the bank of a small rivulet. This snake like river patronized two more small villages on its shoulder. Thus it divided three villages namely, Jawla Budruk, Jawla Palaskhed and Mahagaon.

Each village, an independent unit, was just a few hundred feet away from the bank of the river. Nonetheless, Jawla people considered village Mahagaon its part. There was thick forest like jungle of various trees along the banks of the river. Big and small trees, thorny tall trees, smooth skinned umbrella trees, green bushes, big red fruit bearing cactus, creepers circled on trees. Shadows of the trees would fall in the tranquil waters of the river making its appearance dark green and deeper. The jungle was full of birds, crows and parrots, kites and kingfishers, owls and sparrows chirping from morning to evening   .water- fowls and butterflies. From sunrise to sunset, banks resounded with twittering, fluttering, flapping and flying.

During night, the banks were calm and quite. But very often foxes would gather and scream in chorus in shrill cries at night hours. Elders would consider it a bad omen expecting some unholy and unseen event to be-fall on the village. But next day in the morning none would remember it. I remember only how my mother used to hold me tightly to her breast cursing the foxes.

The river was full of waters flowing throughout the year. The water, except for a few days in monsoon, was crystal clear. At places it was so deep that many people committed suicide by drowning themselves in it. Open defecation, dirty true but it was restricted to specified area.

Everyday morning the rocks on the banks were full of women folk, totally engrossed in washing their clothes. Thrashing the clothes was rhythmic. Sometimes they would whisper with their co-comers and sometimes they would shout at each other. For onlookers it was difficult to know the reason. But next moment they would walk together laughing aloud, keeping bundles of washed clothes on their heads maintaining perfect balance while walking. They were old, young, married and unmarried women, but everyone in hurry to return.

People from Mahagaon would walk down on the banks with pots of various sizes of metals. They carried water for drinking purpose. Elders also would take bath in the river. But usually their bathing places were at a distance upstream.

For us children had no specific time or place for swimming. Entire riverbed was their swimming pool. Jumping in the water, splashing water at each other, floating on the back in the running water, playing hide and seek underwater were the favourite water games of the children. During monsoon very often the river would be flooded. Sometimes floods were ferocious. Incessant downpour would add the volume of flood water. Especially floods at night would create roaring sound and keep us – particularly Jawla folk on bank awake the whole night. The communication of three villages would come to standstill. School would remain closed and there was no farm work. Happy day for children.

But for we children floods were a fun. Children of my age and little above used to swim throughout the day. We used to catch woods and branches of trees floated down with the flood. Family would use it as fuel. Receding of flood would bring gloom on our faces. I was very fond of swimming in the flood and crossed flooded river from one bank to the other. It was a great joy.

During rainy season the river water would be full of variety of fishes. New variety used to come with flood water from upstream. Small silver coloured fishes, pink long thin fishes, delicate and tender with long pointed beak like fishes. Mouth studded with sharp teeth fish, snake shaped fishes, fishes thick and rough like our palm, small and big crabs, tiny prawns, sometimes but rarely there were big type fish also, mostly unknown.

We knew various ways of fishing. Fishing by net, fishing by bed sheet, fishing by logging water so and so forth. We children used a simple technique of fishing. We would bury a long stick in the water of which upper portion would be above the water and visible. Then we would take a small bowl in which small pieces of bread or flour would be kept, the bowl was covered and tied with a piece of cloth making a small hole in its centre. Then the bowl was kept near at the bottom of the buried

stick in the water. After 10-15 minutes we would go and by putting our

finger on the hole of the bowl, check whether the fishes entered into the bowl through hole to eat the eatable kept inside.

The moment it was found full with fishes, it was taken out with the fishes trapped inside. It was repeated till we got the required quantity and so, Fish curry would be ready!

During nights we had a novel method of fishing. We would tie thorny bushes to a long rope and two persons would hold two ends of the rope and slowly move towards in the deep water, while two other persons would hold tight two corners of the spread bed sheet just behind the bushes. Moment the fish touched the moving thorny bushes it would jump backward falling in the bed sheet tightly held. Fishes just caught was special dish of the night.

But I used to have a strange feeling. Standing on the bank, I always thought why the flood water should go waste? We were taught that all the river water ultimately went to the sea, never to return. I had no answer.

Like any other village, my village comprised of different castes and communities. Strength wise the Mahar community was dominant having nearly 100 houses. It was considered as an untouchable caste. The second dominant caste was the Mali. They were essentially farmers, very hard working, simple but less inclined for education. They were touchable. Then there were the Deshmukhs, high caste aristocrats, the Patils, officially declared Head of the village, then the Kunbis, again mostly farmers, few houses of Brahmins, one or two houses of Muslims and the Pardhis, one or two families of cobblers and Matang both untouchable castes. Interestingly there was not a single Christian family in our village. Houses of the Mahars – the untouchables – were just adjacent to the high caste touchable. In fact one or two houses of Matang untouchables were almost in the midst of houses of the high caste.

All said and done my village was very progressive. We, at least from my childhood days, never experienced humiliation of being untouchables. There was no bar or ban on untouchables to pass through or cross over roads or streets of the high castes or taboos on going to shops belonging to the high  castes located in their localities, in fact mostly in their houses. Most of the elder people were literate and

educated. There were no quarrels between touchable and high castes and untouchables. The credit for this uncommon – unlike elsewheres – intercastes harmony was attributed mainly to four important and respectable persons.

They were Babarao Deshmukh, Shamrao Patil, Rambhau Patil and Gunaji Sawdekar i.e. my elder brother.

Few of the Mahar families were reasonably well to do; few were holding small areas of agricultural lands and majority were landless agricultural labourers.

The inhabitants being essentially farmers, there were number of wells around the village. Subsoil water was abundantly available. As such almost every farm had a well. Water being plenty, farmers could take crops throughout the year keeping fields always green around the village. There were no electrically operated water pumps. There were big leather bags tied with ropes. The ropes were put on revolving wheels installed on the edge of the well. The bullocks were used to pull up the leather bag or bucket submerged in the well water. Once the bag was pulled up, the water in the bag would pour in the tank adjacent to the well. Water such stored would then reach to the crops through the small canals. It was a strenuous job for both bullocks and farmers. Tinkling of bells tied around the necks of the bullocks, murmuring noise of the revolving wheels, sound of the pouring water, voice of fondling bullocks by the farmer and cool and pleasant breeze of the blowing wind disturbing flying hairs of the farmer’s wife watering plants keeping showel in one hand and resting the other hand on her waist, simply a scene worth to be seen and realize hard but contended life of the farmer’s family of my village.

This was a very common feature to be noticed in most of the fields in my village. Friday was the weekly market day and many small traders, retailers and even farmers from nearby villages came to sell their goods and to purchase essential commodities for their use. For children it was a day of sweets. Parents would invariably purchase some sweet items for their children. I was very fond of sugarcane. My brother used to dare to purchase some sweets for us too, but generally these items for us were considered contraband!

All celebrated all festivals and each festival would create an atmosphere of joy and gaiety, happiness and mental freshness. Each

and everybody wanted to be seen in new clothes, although level of celebrations varied from family to family and community to community,

but amount of festive spirit could be felt flowing equally in all the communities.

“Nagpanchami” was the festival of snakes. Elders drew the pictures of snakes on the walls of their houses. We children drew these pictures on our school-slates. The pictures of snakes such drawn were worshipped. Songs on and about snakes were sung in chorus the whole night.

“Pola” was the festival of bullocks. Owners would paint the horns of their bullocks, put beautifully embroidered colourful clothes on the backs of the bullocks, tie tinkling bells around their necks and anklets, cover their foreheads with colourful clothes and feed them with boiled rice. All the bullocks thus decorated were taken in procession to the temple of village goddess for worshipping it. Engaging bullocks for any work was totally forbidden on that day. The housewife would worship them and provide good eatables.

Besides other things “Dassera” was celebrated to worship a particular tree. Its leaves were brought from fields or forests and they were ceremoniously distributed to the relatives, friends, nearer and dearer as “Golden Leaves”. We used to visit every house of our caste, wish them well forgetting all ill-feelings, if any. The same ritual was conducted in all the communities. Effigies of bad things were also burnt on this day.

Besides lighting lamps, we used to compose and sing songs in praise of cows during the four days of “Deepawali” – Festival of Lights. All people from children to old and men to women looked in their new clothes. Four days were attributed to four subjects like farmers, wealth, sister-brother relations and family gathering.

People irrespective of their caste, greeted each other and wished well for each other. There were number of major and minor festivals which were celebrated by all. Though high caste and castes considered untouchable lived as independent and separate entities, there was no

ill feeling or hatred related to untouchability. Due credit went to all

communities, but major share was being given to my elder brother, Gunaji and others.

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar alias Baba Saheb Ambedkar had already become

a respectable household name among the untouchable communities of India.

He woke up these illiterate, degraded, socially insulted, humiliated, religiously isolated and deliberately kept in penury by high caste Hindus. He aroused their self pride and self respect. He successfully made them realize that they too were human being and equal with anybody of any caste. Dr. Ambedkar asked this poor folk to educate, to organize and to agitate against any form of injustice if heaped on them by anybody. He told them that castes were created not by any God but by high caste Hindu Brahmin community to serve their interest. Teachings of Dr. Ambedkar spread like wild fire in the country and the untouchable castes not only listened to it but imbibed and implemented it in its letter and spirit. Resultantly, Ambedkarite movement created hundreds and thousands devoted, dedicated, selfless and committed activists in these communities.

And my elder brother Gunaji was one of them. He brought Ambedkarite movement in our village. Gunaji formed with his other colleagues of our caste from my locality, his own folk theatre. He wrote stories, composed songs on superstitions, caste systems, education, unity etc. and participated in his folk theatre stage performances. His name and folk group named as “Jalsa” became extremely popular and famous not only in our three villages but throughout our Buldhana District. It created result oriented impact in our communities. To send children to school was being considered a family pride. If any family – especially in my village failing to send their boy to school it was considered a matter of social stigma and insult to Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar particularly in the Mahar families.

But still our people followed Hindu religion, worshiped Hindu Gods and observed other rituals. I was being invited by our people to read out Maha-Bharat, Ramayan and Shivleela Amrut, the Hindu religious scriptures on ceremonial occasions. But the vigorous propagation by such stage performers gradually started diminishing the scriptures’ influence, importance and feelings of reverence about it from the minds of our people. All these events were taking place with terrific speed and change in my house, in my village, in my district and around; and very much in my presence. Knowingly and unknowingly my childhood with clean and tender mind was getting imprinted with

teachings of Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar. His emphasis that everyone must learn, that every family must send their children to school inspired

even illiterate parents of our community and they started educating their wards even at the cost of their daily bread. My mother rarely spoke but when she spoke, she would ask my brother to send me to the school. My brother knew that I was too young to admit in the school.

None accepted social insult in our caste in my village. But it created genuine impact on other high caste communities who started mutual respect for each other and who, I saw them seldom trying to rationalize the caste system as Dr. Ambedkar thought that it was based on descending order of disrespect towards each other. This was the reason responsible for maintenance of communal harmony and absence of observance of untouchability in our village.

The locality of the Mahar constituted 100 families approximately. As in other villages of the state our locality was also known as “Mahar-Wada”. It was a compact locality. There were many huge and tall Neem trees grown at the various points of locality. They were evergreen, casting pleasant shadows. During flowering season, the flowers spread sweet fragrance. Trees were full of birds. Peacocks were occasional visitors while parrots and crows had their permanent residences on the trees. As the locality was just adjacent to fields and few hundred feet away from the river, monkeys and the deers made casual visits to drink water saturated around the wells, especially during summer season. All these visitors were uninvited but felt no fear from us. There were 5 to 6 wells in our locality constructed at different places and were always full of sweet and cool drinking water. Generally houses were made of mud walls, roofs thatched with grass or dried sticks of cotton trees or tin sheets or tiles. There were a few pakka houses. Majority of Mahar males and females were good looking, with wheatish complexion and had good voice for singing. Even older generation was literate. Many of them including my brother, Gunaji were good commentators on religious scriptures like Mahabharat and Ramayana.

My father’s name was Saduji or Sadashiv. My mother’s name was Shevanti. I was told my father was literate and mother illiterate. I did not remember when exactly I lost our father. My mother told me that I was about 3 years at that time. The couple had three sons and two daughters. Gunaji or Gunwant, Raghuji or Raghunath and Raoji i.e. myself. My sisters were Bhagirathi and Dwarka. Both were illiterate but good looking.

My mother told me that Gunaji was compelled to leave the school in 4^th standard in order to look after the family after our father’s death. Raghunath got employed to tend cattle of a Mali on yearly salary with two times meals at the employer’s house. While Gunaji worked as an agricultural labourer with my mother, sisters and my sister-in-law i.e. Gunaji’s wife. Subsequently both sisters and Raghunath got married.

After two children Dwarka became a widow but got remarried while Bhagirahi had two sons but was always with us due to ill treatment at her in-law’s house. Gunaji was fair, tall and handsome. He was well read and well informed. He had good knowledge of Indian history, Hindu religion and conducted rituals dexterously. But his main commitment was to take the message of Dr. Ambedkar to masses. His own troupe’s stage performance had already created good awareness about Dr. Ambedkar’s teachings in our community. It was his missionary work, which kept him always on tours leaving burden of earning food on our mother, Raghunath and wife of Gunaji and wife of Raghuji himself. Raghunath was simple and honest man and a loving brother. I could feel the burden but was not able to help them. Because I was too young to shoulder it!

My elder brother Gunaji was trying in vain to justify and satisfy our mother. My second brother too was mischievously smiling – so were other members of our family. It was month of June and monsoon was set in. it was drizzling continuously as such there was no work in the fields and so all were at home. My mother was apparently unhappy and she expressed her displeasure on her face without uttering a word. Fact was neither shirt nor half pant rightly measured and fit for me. Shirt was baggy and hanging down my knees and sleeves were longer than my arms, which had over covered even my fingers. Half pant was so big and wide in width that it immediately fell down on the ground. My brother Gunaji had purchased these second hand and old used clothes from the Shegaon market for me as I was to be admitted in the school.

When they noticed some sort of helplessness on the face of my brother Gunaji and my puzzled eyes, all in one voice suddenly started appreciating the clothes. My mother said colour of the shirt was good, Raghunath praised the half pant, sisters-in-law wanted to give some thread stitches to make pant fit in my waist. Raghunath brought his own once used but broken slate and gave it to me. In order to please and encourage me to go to the school for admission in that dress, they said that I was going to learn like Baba Saheb Ambedkar and would

become a big man in life.

Anyhow my elder brother holding my hand, walked upto the school situated on the other bank of the river in Jawla-Palaskhed area. He took me to the school head master’s room. Mr. Hedau (real name) was the head master who already knew my brother. He asked me some questions, like whether I liked the school and whether I would attend

class regularly and I would not quarrel with any other students! I looked at him but did not reply. After admitting me, my brother paid his respect to the head master and also asked me to do the same. He left for home and the Head master asked his peon to take me to the classroom of first standard.

The class teacher Mr. Palhade (real name) asked my name and told  to sit along with other students. It was a long strip of jute fibres spread over from one end to the other end of the classroom on which all students were sitting. All were of my age. Within a minute I felt that they were looking at my clothes and me alternately and smiling mischievously. I remembered my dress rehearsal at the house and shabby look of my clothes. However the scene did not last long and boys started talking with me.

In the evening when I returned home, everyone asked me as to how I liked the school, students, our class teacher etc. etc. when I said as to how the class students were looking at me, suddenly they changed the subject. Next day I went to school in the same pant and shirt. But I found both pant and shirt were cut to my size and stitched at home. It was done by my mother. Nobody looked at me like the previous day.

At noon it was lunch recess. Many students went to their homes for lunch while some students had brought lunch boxes with them and they started taking it in the school premises itself. I had nothing to eat and there was nobody at home to give me some eatable even I went. And what was our lunch? Simple dry bread of Jawar, green chilly and

salt! I was eagerly waiting for my mother to return from fields. When she came I asked her to give me lunch box and told her how other students either went to their homes or took their lunch boxes in the school premises. For a moment my mother looked at me blankly and then said she would give it to me from next day.

But next day when I woke up in the morning all members had already gone for work in the fields and small piece of bread of Jawar (millet)

was left for me. I ate it and went to the school.

Again when I complained for not giving me lunch my mother said that she was forgetting daily. Suddenly my mother dragged me to her breast and held me tightly. For a minute or two she was absolutely silent. I could hear her accelerated breathing. When some droplets fell on my cheeks I looked up. My mother was quietly weeping.

Her eyes were full of tears which were flowing down and falling on my face. Pressing me still tighter to her bosom, she picked up corner of her saree, wiped out gently her tears falling on my face and in broken and incoherently voice, holding my face in her palms said “I am sorry my son, I lied. Forgive me. Fact is I shall never be able to give you anything for your lunch!” Again she started sobbing quietly. Something struck my heart. Total darkness spread before my eyes. Slowly I freed myself from that overflowing but helpless bond of love and affection and I stood up before her.

Stark poverty did a miracle! Instantly I became a grown up man at the right time but at a wrong age!

Holding her hands and looking confidently in her eyes, I said, “Don’t worry mother! Do not cry. I shall not ask you in future. But wipe out your tears”!

River was just a few minutes walk from our school. It had abundant water throughout the year. Water beckoned me. I found a source of enjoyment and time pass. From that day I started going for swimming in the river during the lunch recess, and it remained with me throughout my school days at my village. Neither I broke my promise given to my mother nor God gave chance to my mother to revert her words!

Swimming a good substitute for hunger!