From the Abode of the gods

Ram is well in his 70s. He’s a kind and friendly person, who saw me running to the waterfall and wondered for how long and how far I have been running. He was appreciative of the fact that I made it all the way from Naggar. We became friends in a hurry. 

He recommended his grandson’s dhaba by the waterfall for a great meal (oh and what a FANTABULOUS meal it was!!). He told me that some dhabas here are even run by harijans (dalits, formerly untouchables). The city-dwellers who come here to see the falls ate from those dhabbas. My response was that I rejected the concept of caste. We are all Indians, right? The old gentleman tells me that we the people of the plains have forgotten caste but Himachal is the abode of the gods. The gods live here and they would not allow caste barriers to vanish. I take him on and ask if the concept of caste was created by men and not by gods? He insisted that the laws were universal and created by the gods...

Before any of you form a bad impression of this man, let me add what else he told me. In this village, every single person is educated regardless of caste. That in the classroom, all children are equal; that he invited members of the lower castes into his home for lunch and there were no separate plates for harijans or anyone. He also dined with the Harijans. So where did the caste barrier come in the way? With marriages and that was it. The man was friends with everyone in the village. I adore the old man but I can’t figure out his obsession to maintain even this watered-down version of the caste system.

Then the topic switched over to my “aren’t we all Indians” statement. “How long have we been Indians,” he asked. “Since 1947?” He wanted to know if it was the British that made us Indians. All I could tell him is that the Krishna that he worships everyday is the same Krishna that my mother prays to. And yes, the village of my grandparents in Kerala had these caste structures at one time too. So, are we different people?

Those of you reading this might wonder how a tree-hugging liberal agnostic like me used Hinduism as something that binds Kerala and Himachal. The fact is that Hinduism, the way it is practised, still binds people from Manipur to Maharashtra, from Kashmir to Kerala.  But it is not the only thing that binds us, the Indians, together. Regardless of religion, language and other factors, there is an innate Indian-ness in each and every Indian. And here I mean Indians living in India, not those who have permanently abandoned the motherland.

Yes, foreigners will never able to understand this concept of Indian-ness, but it sure does exist. This intangible Indian-ness binds us whether we like it or not.