While everyone is at it, and tweeting #blacklivesmatter, and rightly so. Let me tell you a story that haunts me every single day. This began in the 1920's and tragically ended in 2002, though it continues even to this day. 1/n
My great grand dad retired to Bangalore and as was the custom in those days got a cleaner to cart away night soil at his new home. A young woman, ironically called Lakshmi, who might have been all of 13/14 joined the service, she was still working in our house age 85+ 2/n
I was about 6 or 7 when I recognized her as a person, She would still come around to clean the newer toilets, which curiously had two doors, one from within the house for us and another rarely opened door for "them". I remember her vividly, the most wrinkled, bent person 3/n
I had seen, I remembered her because I was fascinated by her iron anklets, and wanted to touch and feel them. She shouted at me "oddu naana oddu"( no child, no!) but the six year old me was determined, I went and saw it, felt it and the next thing I know, I was being dragged 4/n
given a whack and the next thing I know couple of buckets of cold water from the well were thrown on to me. Some real scolding for touching an untouchable etc. She was horrified that I had touched her too, kept mumbling about the bad luck she would get for touching a Brahmin 5/n
Cut to 15 years later, I was 20, newly lost my father. The local municipal cleaning supervisor brings around a man about 3 /4 years my senior and introduces him as someone who will clean our street etc. the man seems familiar, when asked she says his great grand mother, 6/n
Grandmother, mother, father, uncles have all cleaned our streets and our toilets. My mind was boggled. 5th Generation doing exactly the same, still being untouchable, hesitating to step into our house through the main door 7/n
He was the very same Lakshmi's great grand son. This was the time of VP Singh, Mandal and the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. I was caught up in the student movement sloganeering and fighting the perceived injustice of reservations. The stark reality did not even strike me 8/n
I went my way, being the middle class boy that I was, job, career, ambition took me places. I returned to Bangalore in the late 90's. Joined an IT company a couple of streets from my ancestral home One day I reach the office early enough to come face to face with the cleaning 9/n
people and I spy a young man of 18 or so who seemed strikingly familiar, on inquiry he said his name was Nagaraja and yes he was related to Lakshmi, and yes his uncle still cleaned our street, though he was now a supervisor. Nagaraja was studying in evening college 10/n
working with a housekeeping firm to clean toilets etc to earn some income. I spoke to our HR to allow him to come and study at our office as his EWS( economically weaker section) quarters given by the city were cramped & dirty, with iffy power supply and affected his studies 11/n
I would cross paths occasionally mentioned him to his uncle Mahadeva His whole family was looking forward to Nagaraja's generation studying and escaping the cycle of becoming sanitary workers I would guiltily give him a few bucks, but soon enough forget him in my daily grind 12/n
One day in 2003, I found Mahadeva and Nagraja's father dead drunk, crying inconsolably on the footpath opposite our house. I stopped my car to find out what happened. They said Nagaraja, perhaps the brightest hope in their family was dead. He had hung himself age 19, 13/n
a couple of days prior to this tragic event, he was picked up by the local police along with 6 to 8 boys of his age, taken to the police station and trashed senseless. According to the the father and uncles, this was routine whenever there was a theft, eve teasing or other 14/n
petty incident in the neighboring posh locality. The police would round up young men or women and give them a "lesson". Nagaraja had never faced this, he thought his education and steady job would exclude him. The day it did, the humiliation was way too much 15/n
Nagaraja could not understand his fate, he chose to end it. I was stunned beyond words. Tried to talk to a few people including my mother about it. They gave reasons from karma, to criminal mindset, no smoke without fire etc. Nagaraja was studying to be a lawyer. 16/n
Justice failed him, and we as a society have been failing generations of his people with our bigotry, casteism, we are no less racist or no less cruel than that police officer that knelt on #georgeflyod .
