Cheers
To Those Who Cocked A Snook
Ezra Azra
.
©
Copyright 2024 by Ezra Azra |
A Hindu deity. Gouache. courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
|
It
happened in the middle of the nineteenth century, in the small
utterly nondescript village of Kottarakkara, in the State of Kerala,
India.
By
then India had been a part of the British Empire for nearly a
century.
Both
of our protagonists were in their early teens. He was a penniless
Christian; She was a wealthy Hindu of the Brahmin Caste; the highest
Caste in India.
Nobody
knows how many Castes there were in India in the nineteenth century.
The lowest number suggested was five; the highest number was
thousands. Everybody agreed the highest Caste was Brahmin. Those born
Brahmin were believed to be genetically inclined to being
intellectually superior to others.
The
gods punished anyone who did not obey Caste rules.
Christianity
had come to India eighteen
centuries earlier. From the beginning, Christianity and all other
non-Hindu religions, were regarded as lower than the lowest Hindu
Caste.
Our
Brahmin female protagonist had been born with a defect that forbade
anyone from marrying her.
In
Hinduism in those days, to be unmarried, in any Caste, female or
male, was the worst curse from all the hundreds of Hindu gods. A
primary righteous obligation the gods expected of a person was that
they should be kind to other righteous persons. Persons were exempt
from this obligation in their treatment of unmarried individuals.
Multiple spouses was a Hindu remedy that rescued unmarried family
members. In order to protect the family from the shame, already
married members, female and male, were allowed to marry family
members who were not married.
Hindu
females unmarried in their late teens, and without marriage offers
from male family members, were encouraged to commit quiet dignified
holy suicide by drinking one of many homemade poison brews. The
elaborate ceremony by which this process was celebrated was among the
holiest of Hindu poojahs, attended by many gods. It was a sacrifice
holier than sati, which was a widow’s sacred immolation by
leaping into her dead husband’s cremation flames.
An
unmarried female who graciously accepted such holy self destruction
would be highly honored by all gods in the life hereafter. Many, many
of the minor immortal Hindu gods would be honoured to worship her in
the life hereafter.
Occasionally,
there were rumours of a Hindu converting to another religion in order
to escape the Hindu brew offer of nirvana. For obvious reasons, such
unspeakable individuals would be vociferously and loudly publicly
disowned by their Hindu families.
It
was normal for rich high-Caste people to employ poor low-Caste
people to do domestic work. In those days, the belief among Hindus
was that the gods favored high-Caste persons who were brave enough to
risk unholy contamination by allowing low-Caste persons to do menial
work around and, even, inside the home.
Our
female protagonist had four siblings. Her two elder brothers were
married and had their own homes. When they visited with their
families, She was expected to confine Herself to Her room. Because of
Her, their visits always lasted only minutes.
Her
two sisters were younger than She. Both were already betrothed.
The
time was fast approaching when She would be offered a choice of those
Hindu spice-tasty homemade holy poojah brews.
It
had been months our male protagonist had been hired to attend the
family’s acres of garden around the home. His remuneration was
generous amounts of food, so much food that He was encouraged to take
most home to share with His poor Christian family.
The
astounding mystery was why that Brahmin family had hired Him, in the
first place. They knew He was Christian, and that because He was
Christian no Hindu god would look kindly on them for hiring Him.
A
likely reason was that whereas there were no rules from the earliest
times that specifically declared Hindu gods were offended by the
suggestion that there were gods of other religions, there being no
other religions in those earliest times. And so, there was no
definite contamination suffered by a Hindu who, even accidentally,
touched a non-Hindu.
Another
likely reason was that since Brahmin payment in money to a
non-Brahmin servant was unthinkable at all times, the payment in
left-over Brahmin food to any pukka Hindu of a lower Caste was
downright blasphemous.
The
most likely reason was that in a small utterly nondescript village
such as Kottarakkara, supremely pure highest Caste Hindus could
commit minor sacrilegious deeds, and suffer no holy repercussions.
And
so, all the times He worked in the garden, that Hindu-cursed Brahmin
female was allowed to take food to Him and to place the containers on
the ground out of sight away from Him. He was never aware of whom it
was who brought Him the food. He was never curious because He had
assumed it was a high-Caste person who would not care to be seen by
Him. And if He saw that high-Caste bringer of his food, He would be
considered insolent; and so He would not be allowed to work there,
ever again.
Hence,
when one cloudy day He saw Her waiting where He went to eat His food
where it had been placed, He was so shocked that His body, virtually,
turned to stone; refused to obey His panicked thoughts to turn and
run away for his miserable life.
Of
course, He could never have known She was Hindu-cursed. Perhaps, just
perhaps, had He known, there might not have been so much terror in
his reaction at seeing Her so close to Him.
While
He stood as still as a stone, She came up to Him and placed Her hand
on His shoulder. In sheer terror, with perspiration dripping
copiously from the top of his head down his forehead and blinding his
eyes, and down the back of his neck, He fully expected to die
instantly.
She
whispered to Him, “Will you marry me? Please?”
Instantly
involuntarily He nodded slightly, fitfully; not because he understood
her question. Not because it was always safer to agree nonverbally
with any question from a person of a higher Caste.
He
nodded, only to get Her to leave Him alone. His nod was mostly a
shiver of abject terror She quite misinterpreted.
She
whispered, “Say it. Please!” It was hoarse and barely
audible when He replied, “Yes.” She left.
He
fainted. He felt Himself collapse to the ground, in slow motion.
Within brief minutes he recovered. He hastily mopped away the
perspiration with a perfumed large exquisitely embroidered
purest-cotton handkerchief he was clutching in a hand. It did not
occur to Him to question the presence of the handkerchief, even
though He had never in his life owned or used one, perfumed or other.
In
the days that followed the fear that triggered his traumatic
temporary loss of consciousness, gradually, fitfully, gave way to
joy. He was far too young to know just how impossible their marrying
was at that time in Caste-infested India, and in Caste-infested
Hinduism anywhere else in the world; just how violently fatal Caste
and her family would have made it for both of them.
In
the days that followed, He caught glimpses of Her placing His food on
the ground, glimpses that happened because She contrived them to
happen. He was fearfully puzzled why She had become so suicidally
defiant of Her religion; of Her gods; of Her highest-Caste family.
Unexpectedly,
He found out why, in a few days.
Her
mother, unknown to Him, had been seriously ill for days, and died.
That thoroughly Hindu highest-Caste home was plunged into near-chaos.
There
was a constant stream of Hindu persons coming and going, most of them
being distant family. Others were associates and strangers eager to
be seen paying their respects to the numerous wealthy living, as
eagerly as to the dead mother of five.
What
He would never know about was that deeper drive that gave that
Brahmin Hindu girl the outrageous courage to propose to Him,
who, on account of His being Christian, was lower than the lowest
Hindu Caste. It was Her dying mother’s words spoken especially
and only to Her.
While
Her mother lay in bed dying, Her family forbade Her from being at
Her mother’s side. They opined She had already been enough of a
curse all Her life to them and to Her mother for being
unmarriageable. She had cunningly contrived to
attend Her
dying mother for a few seconds. Her mother had clasped Her hand,
whispered words to Her, and kissed Her hand. It was those words that
ignited an utterly and wholly unHindu daring courage in Her. With
some of those words Her mother gave Her directions to a pillowcase
filled with pure gold jewelry, many times more than enough to pay a
king’s ransom.
In
addition to the quite fortuitous family turmoil brought about by the
mother’s death, there was the national unrest India was being
subjected to by the politicians’ incitement of the people to
march for independence from the conquering Christian British Empire.
That
conquest had never seen peace all over the country at any time.
Our
protagonists, He and She, saw an opportunity.
They
joined one of the many peoples’ rowdy anti-British marches. For
the first time, our protagonists held hands. For the first time,
because He saw the twin in Her hand, He knew where that handkerchief
had come from, with which He had mopped away from His face, scalding
perspiration of fear.
For
the first time, they dared to hold hands. Nobody noticed. Everybody
marching, and chanting anti-British slogans could not care less.
Our
protagonists marched for India’s independence from the British
Empire long before the great Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi marched; long
before the indomitable Jawaharlal Nehru.
They
passed a building with a notice about times and nearby places to
enlist to join British Government transportation to other parts of
the Empire, as laborers. They signed up, as husband and wife. They
were ecstatic to be leaving India forever the very next day aboard a
ship, “SS Karanja Pride,” British built and British
driven.
There
were hundreds of emigrants like them on that “SS Karanja”
steamship, headed for British Empire harbours on the East coast of
Africa. Our protagonists kept up their appearance of being penniless
and lowest Caste. In actual fact, much to His infinite joy and
greatest admiration, when She had fled Her home to Him after Her
mother’s death, She had remembered to flee wearing all Her
dying mother’s gift to Her of that pillowcase of gold jewelry.
Decades
in the future, our protagonists died in peace in old age in Durban,
South Africa. He on 5th June, 1949. She on 1st
August, 1973.
She
had never divulged to Him the dying words of Her mother; only because
She never trusted She could have adequately interpreted Her mother’s
poetic words from Her Indian language into English. She trusted one
of their grandchildren who became a school teacher of, among other
subjects, verbal poetry. That grandchild translated their
grandmother’s dying mother’s words into perfectly rhymed
English iamb: “In death is victory for all eternity against
the countless evils in command in this reality.”
The
words were carved in the granite tombstones of both grandparents.
Our
protagonists had five children; all daughters; all adopted from
fellow India emigrants in Durban. He and She lived to enjoy the
company of their thirteen grandchildren, all without Caste; all
without gods.
He
and She not caring to get married throughout their happy lives
together, could have been interpreted as their, verily, cocking a
snook at the hundreds of gods in India, Hindu and Christian, all of
whom, brazenly and openly, forever and forever, could not care less.
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