Scarred Forever

Truth and Dare is a curated fortnightly column in our Features section. In this experimental series, we present a prompt to writers and invite them to respond with a short piece of fiction or non-fiction. There are no restrictions on genre or form, only the challenge of engaging with the prompt in whatever way it leads them. 

We are curious to see how this prompt evolves as it passes through different writers. Perhaps every writer encounters invisible prompts — those quiet provocations that become the spark for a creative journey.

We look forward to discovering what writers make of this prompt and the surprises they bring back for our readers. In the end, the truth lies in their responses; the prompt is simply the dare.

The first prompt is: Things I didn’t Throw Out

I am the child of destitute refugee parents from the other Bengal. We were made to live in a camp for people like us, with all government aid cut off because we had refused to go to Dandakaranya, where families like ours were being resettled. We couldn’t even afford to cook food at home anymore. My father used to work as a day labourer in Jadavpur, south Calcutta.  His daily wage was about three, maybe three-and-a-half rupees a day. He had to stop going to work on account of a gastric ulcer caused by starvation. He lay on a torn mat all day, writhing and groaning, clutching his stomach in agony and weeping. All he did was swallow fistfuls of baking soda to subdue the pain.

I was ten, perhaps eleven. India’s war with China had just ended, and a terrible scarcity had gripped all of Bengal. Unable to bear the constant gnawing of hunger, I left everything behind — parents, siblings, home — and set out into  the unknown. On tottering, undeveloped feet, I went off to find out whether there was any food left for us in this vast country.

My plan was to go to Jadavpur, where my father used to work as a porter. The idea was to find a job there, so that I could get something to eat every day. And, if I managed to earn some money, I could send it home to my family. Ghutiari Railway Station was some seven miles from Gholadoltola Camp, where we lived. Late in the afternoon, with the glare of the sun softening, I walked along the trail to the station, arriving in the evening. I had eaten nothing all day, and the long walk had drained me. I sat on a bench on platform two, and then lay down on it. Before I knew it, I was sleeping like the dead. A number of trains passed by, but they did not wake me. 

Deep into the night, a sharp beam from a torch hit my eyes. I woke up to a soft, tender voice: “Ei, little boy, where’s your home? Why are you lying here like this?”

In a dry, hoarse voice, I answered, “I want to go to Calcutta.”

“Calcutta? What for?”

I didn’t know why. All I was certain of was that I had to go.  So I only looked at him blankly. 

“Refugees?” he asked again.

I nodded. “That’s who we are.”

I didn’t need to say more. That one word was enough for him to understand  everything. “Have you eaten anything at all?” he asked. 

I shook my head. “No.”

He knew what would win over a refugee child. “Want to eat? Come with me if you want a proper meal with rice.”

“Come where?”

“My home.”

He was a quack. He was on his way back after seeing a patient when he spotted me at the station. He shone the torch on the road, leading me out of the station. “Come.”

I couldn’t remember when I had last had a meal with rice. The very word made me ache for it. I followed him without a second thought. He handed me his heavy bag. “Be careful with it.”

He lived about two miles from the station. He too had crossed the border, but he wasn’t a refugee. He had purchased a significant amount of land, built his own house on it, and lived happily. On the way, he familiarised himself with my name, caste, creed, everything. He passed on his own too, along with some instructions. “Don’t touch anything you see. We are Brahmins after all, we have to be careful. As a doctor, I cannot possibly follow all the rules. Muchi, Myathor, Molla — I have to treat whoever falls ill, doesn’t matter whether they are low-caste or non-Hindu. But the women at home! They are very strict about purity. There’s a shrine in the house. That’s why I’m warning you. Stay at my place as long as you want. You’ll get food. There’s a pond, you’ll get fish every day. Stay as long as you like, but be cautious, you’re a child after all. You probably do not know how to live in a Brahmin’s house. People of your caste couldn’t even step into our courtyard earlier. After the Partition we can’t enforce each and every rule. Still, we try to preserve what we can of our caste and faith.”

In the camp where we lived everyone belonged to the same caste — Namashudra. We mixed freely, no one was high or low amongst us. I had not yet learnt what this business of caste was. What the doctor said was new to me. A sharp, unfamiliar ache pricked my heart.

With every step we took, the doctor elaborated on the conditions on which I could live and eat at his house. “We own about a dozen cows and calves. You will clean the cowshed in the morning. Take the cows to the field. Let them graze while you collect the dung in a basket. Bring it back in the evening along with the cows. Can you do this? If not, tell me right away, there’s no point taking you home in that case.”

That night I was indeed given a meal with rice. Coarse, red rice straight from the husking pedal. The rice was served with daal, a vegetable, and a slice of fish. I couldn’t remember how long it had been since I’d eaten till my stomach was full. I was made to sleep on a sack of dry cowpat cakes beside the cowshed. The mosquitoes and the smell of cow urine did cause me some discomfort, but these were nothing compared to the joy of a full stomach.

The daily tasks began the next day. I cleaned the shed every morning and took the cows out. Some days they gave me puffed-rice muri for breakfast, and on other days, slightly fermented pantabhaat — made from left-over rice, with onions and green chilies. We herders took turns to look after the cows in the afternoon so that everyone could go home to eat; we brought the cows back home at dusk.

There’s no greater addiction than rice. Two or three months passed as the addiction claimed me completely. Everyday the doctor’s wife poured rice from a height onto my dented enamel plate. She poured the dal and curry the same way, making sure not to touch me or my plate. One day the dal hit the plate so hard it splashed into my eyes and face. After my meal, I had to clean it myself with water from the pond and keep it with me.

Even with my child’s understanding of the world, I could clearly see that no matter what the doctor’s outlook was, his wife was fiercely caste-conscious. Kaoras, Bagdis, Namashudras, Muslims — they were not just untouchable as far as she was concerned, but repulsive filth, like sewer vermin. She considered me a mangy dog who must not be touched, simply on account of my being born in a Namashudra family. So I had no right to go anywhere other than the field, the cowshed, and the pond. 

The doctor’s wife was short-tempered, and her voice was grating, like a strip of bamboo being split with a knife. She shouted all the time, and had no qualms  thrashing me for the smallest of mistakes. However, she did this without actually touching me, using a spiky broom for the job.  Once, when I was beaten badly by the doctor’s wife, I ended up wetting the bed. By bed, I mean the sack that I slept on. The urine seeped through it into the cowpat cakes inside the sack. 

A Brahmin’s daughter, a Brahmin’s wife — how could she possibly cook for Brahmins when the fuel was tainted by a Chandal’s urine? The rage at so much cowpat being wasted led her to thrash me with the broom, again.

Those beatings didn’t amount to much for me. I have been beaten much more mercilessly by many others later in life. And yet, the last beating I took in that house, at the hands of the doctor’s wife, left a mark I can never erase  from my body, from my heart, and from my life.

The doctor had a daughter named Gayatri. She was a few years younger than me. Fair, plump and pretty, with thick hair braided with red ribbons. That particular day, something came over me, and I went up to her and touched her hand. I was hoping she would play with me; we were both children, after all. 

At that moment, I forgot about the doctor’s warning. I forgot that in this system I was untouchable, lower than a human. Even a dog touching her could not be blamed, but I could be. According to the shastras, it was the gravest of crimes, one that could even have cost me my life. None of these harsh realities crossed my mind. I was a child, and I couldn’t hold back. 

Raised on her mother’s lessons, and steeped in casteism , she let out a piercing scream. “Ma! Look! The Chandal touched me!” Anyone who heard her might imagine that I had assaulted her. 

The doctor’s wife was in the kitchen. She shot out like an arrow at her daughter’s screams with the burning hot iron spatula in her hand. “How dare you touch my daughter! I’ll kill you!” She yelled. 

Without asking for or listening to my explanation, she hurled the spatula at me with perfect aim. Like a knife-throwing act in a circus, the blade struck me high on my forehead. At once, blood began to spurt out, covering my face. Some of it dripped on the dry, harsh, barren earth in that Bengal village.

It was the first time in my life that I bled. I can never forget the blood streaming down my face. It was the most stringent of punishments for crossing a line, for being born into a lower caste family. A sentence that would forever stay in my memory. A scar on my forehead that would never disappear, a constant reminder of my standing in society. 

Now, every time I face a mirror, the scar reminds me that without the annihilation of caste, the dignity owed to us will never come our way.