04-25-2007, 02:34 AM
Sorry to post such long passages - but I think they are relevant to the process of social change that occurred in India and are valuable because they are in the words of a person who lived in that time.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The visit to Mysore of Mahatma Gandhi in 1927, in connection with the national campaign for khadi and village industries, afforded a valuable opportunity for us to organize a studentâs reception for the leader. Weeks before the leaderâs arrival, we enrolled volunteers and traveled to the moffusil towns to enlist the support of the students there. We collected a singular studentâs fund and presented the purse to the Mahatma, who received it with a smiling message: âEvery little coin from the hands of a young khadi lover is so much more valuable than a sheaf of bank notes.â We had organized a mass meeting of all students in the cricket grounds and it was considered a great success.
The impact of Gandhian ideology was slowly eroding my faith in the Kanimbele rituals. For several months after joining the University lodge, I kept the fortnightly fast strictly in spite of jokes and jeers from fellow boarders. On Dwadashi morning, I would walk over a mile to grand uncleâs house for the ritual breaking of the fast. This had received high admiration from grand uncle, who himself was not so great a stalwart in the observance of rituals. Once, it happened that without checking the calendar, I had accepted to participate in a debate conducted by the studentâs union. This was to be my first attempt at speaking from a platform in front of my peers and had been goaded in to this by my close friends in an attempt to revive my earlier public speaking abilities. As the day of the debate neared and I realized that it was on an Ekadashi day, I was torn between withdrawing my name from the list of speakers and missing the decade old ritual of the fast on that day. I chose the latter and after that day, urgent and important excuses were not wanting for missing the fast on several subsequent Ekadashis. No doubt, I felt out of sorts on the first few occasions of my lapse and even felt a sense of guilt. But, the fact that no one else among my group in the college or at home in grand unclesâ attached any importance to this ritual made it easy for me to find excuses. The feeling that adherence to the narrow values of the Kanimbele group was intrinsically incompatible with the universal values of Gandhism and Russel-ism, supported me in my break away from the primary faith. From then on, I lived a life of double standards. With my father and his friends, a superficial acceptance of their practices to display my loyalty & respect to them and an open rebellion against all anti-rational Hindu practices in the domain of caste & class, when away from home. Looking back on this diabolical part of my early life, I wish I had integrated both the systems in to my life rather than fooling others. But Could I have done it? Probably not. The two forces are such that if a person is tangled in one, it will suck him deep in to its whirlpool and completely exclude all other forces or influences. I think I made a wise decision at that time to lean rather than embrace, towards the modern and the rational and yet keep peace with the elders by a little play acting.
The tours that we undertook to collect money for the Gandhi Charaka Fund, took us to various nearby towns, where the local hosts were of different caste and community. In Nanjanagud, for example, our generous and enthusiastic host was a Vokkaliga, Sri Vishweshwara Gowda, whose hospitality and comradeship was so genuine and sincere that it laid a permanent foundation of cosmopolitanism in my private and social life.
This was followed by an incident in my University hostel which created a mild sensation among the student community. Our hostel was made up of about 40 bramhins, 10 non-bramhin Hindus and 2 Muslims. The regular big dining hall was reserved for bramhins who were served by the chief cook himself. The non-bramhins were served by junior kitchen staff in a small room by the side of the main dining hall and the two Muslim students were served their meals by the watchman in the narrow passage-way outside the dining complex. One noon, while we the bramhin boys were being served lunch, a couple of non-bramhin boys walked past our half open door to their own dining room. Few of the Bramhin boys took objection to this and loudly called for the door to be shut properly. This upset me very much and I strongly objected to such bigotry. A heated discussion followed and it was suggested to me that I should henceforth keep company with the non-bramhins, where my empathy lay. That evening, I joined the non-bramhins in their dingy dining room to be served by a junior kitchen staff who, made no attempt to hide his disapproval by practically throwing food on to my plate. This went on for a week and the non-bramhin boarders were appreciative of my defiance. One Sunday when we were dining leisurely, I suggested to my co-diners that we should invite the two Muslims to join us. There was an immediate furor of protest and a heated discussion among them. The majority of them was violently opposed to the suggestion and threatened dire consequences to the two diners who had welcomed my idea. That evening for dinner, I joined the two Muslims in their dark and dingy corridor to be served by an equally dirty watchman. The strange thing was that none from my vocal supporters among the bramhin and non-bramhin boarders cared to join me. But everyday there was a stream of my co-boarders and their friends from the college to watch me, a high class bramhin sitting down to eat with two Muslim boys and to crack rude jokes and laugh. This was in 1927. Just seven years later, when Mahatma Gandhi undertook his famous fast unto death in the Yerawada jail to push the cause of the Harijans, the whole nation was seiged with the shame of the practice of untouchability and other similar caste related practices. That week, boarders of all university hostels met spontaneously under the presidentship of Dr. Gopalaswamy, Professor of psychology, and resolved to abolish caste designated dining rooms. Then on there were only two dining rooms; Vegetarian and non-vegetarian. I had been invited to witness this historic resolve by the students.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The visit to Mysore of Mahatma Gandhi in 1927, in connection with the national campaign for khadi and village industries, afforded a valuable opportunity for us to organize a studentâs reception for the leader. Weeks before the leaderâs arrival, we enrolled volunteers and traveled to the moffusil towns to enlist the support of the students there. We collected a singular studentâs fund and presented the purse to the Mahatma, who received it with a smiling message: âEvery little coin from the hands of a young khadi lover is so much more valuable than a sheaf of bank notes.â We had organized a mass meeting of all students in the cricket grounds and it was considered a great success.
The impact of Gandhian ideology was slowly eroding my faith in the Kanimbele rituals. For several months after joining the University lodge, I kept the fortnightly fast strictly in spite of jokes and jeers from fellow boarders. On Dwadashi morning, I would walk over a mile to grand uncleâs house for the ritual breaking of the fast. This had received high admiration from grand uncle, who himself was not so great a stalwart in the observance of rituals. Once, it happened that without checking the calendar, I had accepted to participate in a debate conducted by the studentâs union. This was to be my first attempt at speaking from a platform in front of my peers and had been goaded in to this by my close friends in an attempt to revive my earlier public speaking abilities. As the day of the debate neared and I realized that it was on an Ekadashi day, I was torn between withdrawing my name from the list of speakers and missing the decade old ritual of the fast on that day. I chose the latter and after that day, urgent and important excuses were not wanting for missing the fast on several subsequent Ekadashis. No doubt, I felt out of sorts on the first few occasions of my lapse and even felt a sense of guilt. But, the fact that no one else among my group in the college or at home in grand unclesâ attached any importance to this ritual made it easy for me to find excuses. The feeling that adherence to the narrow values of the Kanimbele group was intrinsically incompatible with the universal values of Gandhism and Russel-ism, supported me in my break away from the primary faith. From then on, I lived a life of double standards. With my father and his friends, a superficial acceptance of their practices to display my loyalty & respect to them and an open rebellion against all anti-rational Hindu practices in the domain of caste & class, when away from home. Looking back on this diabolical part of my early life, I wish I had integrated both the systems in to my life rather than fooling others. But Could I have done it? Probably not. The two forces are such that if a person is tangled in one, it will suck him deep in to its whirlpool and completely exclude all other forces or influences. I think I made a wise decision at that time to lean rather than embrace, towards the modern and the rational and yet keep peace with the elders by a little play acting.
The tours that we undertook to collect money for the Gandhi Charaka Fund, took us to various nearby towns, where the local hosts were of different caste and community. In Nanjanagud, for example, our generous and enthusiastic host was a Vokkaliga, Sri Vishweshwara Gowda, whose hospitality and comradeship was so genuine and sincere that it laid a permanent foundation of cosmopolitanism in my private and social life.
This was followed by an incident in my University hostel which created a mild sensation among the student community. Our hostel was made up of about 40 bramhins, 10 non-bramhin Hindus and 2 Muslims. The regular big dining hall was reserved for bramhins who were served by the chief cook himself. The non-bramhins were served by junior kitchen staff in a small room by the side of the main dining hall and the two Muslim students were served their meals by the watchman in the narrow passage-way outside the dining complex. One noon, while we the bramhin boys were being served lunch, a couple of non-bramhin boys walked past our half open door to their own dining room. Few of the Bramhin boys took objection to this and loudly called for the door to be shut properly. This upset me very much and I strongly objected to such bigotry. A heated discussion followed and it was suggested to me that I should henceforth keep company with the non-bramhins, where my empathy lay. That evening, I joined the non-bramhins in their dingy dining room to be served by a junior kitchen staff who, made no attempt to hide his disapproval by practically throwing food on to my plate. This went on for a week and the non-bramhin boarders were appreciative of my defiance. One Sunday when we were dining leisurely, I suggested to my co-diners that we should invite the two Muslims to join us. There was an immediate furor of protest and a heated discussion among them. The majority of them was violently opposed to the suggestion and threatened dire consequences to the two diners who had welcomed my idea. That evening for dinner, I joined the two Muslims in their dark and dingy corridor to be served by an equally dirty watchman. The strange thing was that none from my vocal supporters among the bramhin and non-bramhin boarders cared to join me. But everyday there was a stream of my co-boarders and their friends from the college to watch me, a high class bramhin sitting down to eat with two Muslim boys and to crack rude jokes and laugh. This was in 1927. Just seven years later, when Mahatma Gandhi undertook his famous fast unto death in the Yerawada jail to push the cause of the Harijans, the whole nation was seiged with the shame of the practice of untouchability and other similar caste related practices. That week, boarders of all university hostels met spontaneously under the presidentship of Dr. Gopalaswamy, Professor of psychology, and resolved to abolish caste designated dining rooms. Then on there were only two dining rooms; Vegetarian and non-vegetarian. I had been invited to witness this historic resolve by the students.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->