The Sahib of Saraidadar, Part 2 of 2

(Illustration below by Sandeep Sen. Originally published on Pangolin Prophecies, a blog maintained by Krishnapriya Tamma.)

It was Diwali soon, and the paddy started to ripen. Before I knew, the harvest season was in full swing. No sooner was the crop harvested than farmers went about preparing the khaniyaar, or threshing circle.  A circular patch of ground was cleared, plastered with cow dung, and a threshing pole driven down the centre. A team of bullocks circumambulated the threshing pole patiently, stamping on the harvested crop spread out on the ground. Threshing took a couple of days, sometimes three or even four. Then followed winnowing; the threshed grain was scooped up and gently cascaded down from head-height in the direction of the wind. The chaff flew off and the grain settled on the ground, forming rounded, smooth little hillocks. Each farmer engaged three or four helpers who were paid wages in grain. Once paddy was done, farmers moved to the millet fields and repeated the process all over again.

My daily routine now took me to the threshing circles to track the progress each farmer was making. Sometimes, I stayed overnight in the fields along with farmer and helpers in temporary leaf-shelters, sleeping around a fire along with my companions to keep away animals and the cold.

I did not realise it then but my presence at the khaniyaar gave rise to hospitality-related complications for my farmer hosts. Most people in the village assumed (incorrectly) that I cooked my own food separately.  And that being socially ‘superior’ I would not eat food cooked in an adivasi house. But now at the khaniyaar, although I was only doing my own work, it created a predicament for the farmer who was threshing. In the local idiom the situation was one that made it incumbent upon the farmer to offer hospitality to the guest. In other words, the Sahib had to be fed. At least an offer had to be made. But what if the Sahib was offended? After all, there was nothing save the simple meal that was cooked at home and brought to the field. The harvest was yet to come in, and demonetisation had choked the little supply of cash from MGNREGS wages that was used to buy pulses and vegetables.

I remained unaware of the difficult situation I had given rise to.

The ice broke one sunny morning.

“Ae Sahib, khana kha le (come, have a meal),” Kuntabai beckoned to me hesitantly. She was a little older than I, and a mother of two teenage children. She was one of my female ‘friends’ in Saraidadar, quiet but warm-hearted and intelligent. On this day, she had just arrived at the field carrying food in a bamboo basket for her husband and the helpers who were winnowing. The invitation was preceded by internal confabulation to which, intently jotting notes, I paid only fleeting attention.

I blinked first, and as the invitation sank in, became conscious of the pangs of hunger gnawing from within. I had left home early on an empty stomach.

I wanted to say yes with alacrity but modesty decreed polite humming and hawing.

“You will have less to eat were I to eat too!”

“No Sahib, there is enough for everyone.”

“Let the men eat first. They have been hard at work while I’ve only been scribbling.”

“Come, Sahib. They will join you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes Sahib.”

“Okay then!”

I sat down with two other men on a quilt spread out on straw. The food, rice with a watery gravy of dried mushrooms, was served on sal leaf-plates. A curry of boiled leaves of the Cassius tora plant was served separately on a leaf. The mushrooms and the Cassius tora leaves had been plucked from the forest during the monsoon, and dried.

“This is all that we jungle folk can offer, Sahib...,” said Kuntabai apologetically, the embarrassment palpable in her voice.

“It’s delicious!” I exclaimed. I was on a hungry stomach, and the warm meal was a feast. In any case, it was food that I was used to although my hosts did not know.

Kuntabai beamed.

“Eat some more,” my companions urged.

I ate my fill.

Ω

Partaking of Kuntabai’s home-cooked meal introduced a new, gastronomic chapter to my stay in Saraidadar. Visits to farmers’ khaniyaar were inevitably followed by invitations to stay for a meal. I was only too happy to accept, for the long early morning walks to the fields on an empty stomach rendered me ravenous as the day wore on. Shy and apprehensive, my hosts repeated the apology that Kuntabai had offered. But, gradually, the hesitation faded even as the warmth of hospitality grew.

I worried that my hosts, a Gond family, would be upset about my eating with the Baiga. The Gond considered themselves socially superior and would not eat food cooked by Baiga hands. As a paying guest in a Gond household, I could well be considered to be bound by the same norm. Which meant that a breach could cause embarrassment to my hosts. To my surprise, however, although they took great interest in knowing who I ate with my hosts took no offence whatsoever. It was as if the rules did not apply to me, a Sahib and a foreigner.

There were subtle variations in the menu that was served. Oftentimes it was pej, a gruel of millet or maize served hot with boiled Cassius tora leaves. On other occasions it was rice served with a water gravy of potatoes, embellished with powdered chilli and coriander. If the farmer was relatively affluent, the meal would contain a thin gravy of mixed vegetables: radish, cauliflower, tomatoes, and seymi (a vegetable resembling the broad bean). No matter who it was, Baiga or Gond, in partaking of their hospitality, I forged new, intimate bonds over the threshing season, the bonhomie further cemented by the wintry nights spent in the fields. There was song, story, anecdote, even a lesson or two in astronomy, before tired limbs turned in on beds of straw. Good friends became ardent friends. There were moments of intimacy when older companions called me “chhot bhai” or plain Venkat.

But they still wouldn’t stop calling me Sahib. Come day-break, and even the evening-time intimates developed wilful amnesia.

Many months since I’d arrived in Saraidadar it began to dawn on me why this might be so.

As an ethnographer I was trying to understand why people thought what they thought, said what they said, and did what they did. It was not so much the literality of their thoughts, words, and actions that piqued the ethnographer’s interest as the contextual and historical factors that lent meaning to them, and, in the process, helped gain insight into people’s minds. It was a slow process. Many things are often so deeply implicit in a particular cultural context that it may be well nigh difficult for people to articulate them to an outsider, making it that much harder to decipher ‘hidden’ meaning.

For a century and more continuing well into the present, the Maikal Hills have remained enfolded by intense hierarchy: social, economic, bureaucratic. In thinking of the Sahib as a social superior, I began to wonder if my fellow villagers derived a sense of prestige and self-worth when their acts of deference, friendliness, and kindness were acknowledged or reciprocated. It seemed to me that this might be so because their own self-image as ‘backward’, ‘poor’, and ‘uneducated’ had at least partly come to be defined in opposition to the generic image of the Sahib, whose attributes, in addition to being an outsider, were education, affluence, and power. Little wonder then that they were pleased when the Sahib (any Sahib, for that matter) accepted their hospitality. Sahibs were usually formal, and, at times, harsh. Hence, being on friendly terms with one boosted ego and morale. Living in the village, something unusual for a Sahib, enhanced the status of the village as a whole. But if the Sahib ceased to be a Sahib, the opportunity to derive such satisfaction would be lost.

The irony was depressing. Here I was, trying hard to be one among them. But, here they were too, resistant to my efforts - and, it appeared to me - insisting on hierarchy with equal, if not greater, enthusiasm. It was almost as if the ideal way in which I could reciprocate the warmth and affection that I received was by maintaining hierarchy rather than effacing it. This was nothing short of a blow. Were this line of reasoning to be true, I could not figure out how I could try to get my neighbours to take greater pride in themselves and their way of life even if I wanted to. I felt bemused, deflated.

As I reflected further, the complexity of the situation opened itself up even more. Was it not the case that my position as student researcher afforded me the luxury of wanting to be treated as an equal? I thought of other ‘friendly’ Sahibs around.  A fieldworker from an NGO based in the district headquarters visited the village every once in a while and was well-liked. The newly-posted forest guard was a pleasant young man. They were both Gond adivasis from the foothills, and belonged to villages far from Saraidadar. But their jobs required them to maintain a degree of aloofness in order to command obedience. Underlying their compulsion was the fact that for both state and many NGOs, ‘development’ in practice was less about imparting dignity to people or enhancing their decision-making capacities; it was more about improvement in material status alone. In their patronising view, ‘tribals’ were incapable of thinking for themselves; hence, wise officials - through their field staff - would tell them what to do: build toilets (even if there was no near-enough water source, forget piped water), sow high-yielding crop varieties (even if they sat poorly with local climatic conditions), or plant eucalyptus saplings (even if their desirability was in doubt). As a student and researcher, I did not carry the burden of having to demand people’s compliance in accordance with precepts devised by organizational superiors. But other Sahibs, the real ones, did. For them, hierarchy was essential, desirable.

As my ruminations continued, I realised that my affluence clearly marked me out. I let my clothes wear out, but the expensive gadgets I carried were a giveaway:  camera, voice recorder, and hearing aids, and the article that evoked great wonder, a sleeping bag! I had education and affluence on my side. Even if I claimed to be a mere student, in the local imagination power was only a stone’s throw away; all that I had to do was finish writing my ‘book’ before I found a high-paying job in the upper echelons of government, far from the jungle. Needless to say, (my neighbours believed,) I could easily afford to pay the bribe required to secure a government job.

Were all this to be true, aspiring to plebeian status was nothing short of sheer indulgence. 

And yet, I could not reconcile myself to being called Sahib. It remained a sore point, a prick that I had to live with.

Ω

"Who is he?" asked the visitor, curiosity combined with a tinge of suspicion. 

It was late morning as we sat quietly in the verandah of Sukwariyabai’s house. The same Sukwariya who had wanted to see Kali Mata. She was now stunned into shock, having lost her son in a motorcycle accident, an event that caught Saraidadar off-guard and enveloped us in grief. Today was the tijra, the third day after the funeral, an occasion when additional rites would be performed. We were waiting for more people to join us before the ceremony could commence. A few visitors, who had received the news, arrived on foot from nearby villages.

One of the visitors was a saffron-clad middle-aged baba, an adivasi man who had taken to ascetic life and worshipped Bholenath. Hindu gods mingled freely with adivasi ones in these parts, where peripatetic Hindu pilgrims walking along the Narmada river partook of hospitality in adivasi villages. The baba, with fakir-like beard and matted locks piled up unevenly over his turban, counted Sukwariya’s husband, a man with a religious bent of mind, among his fervent devotees. His arrival caused a minor flutter. An empty jute sack was fetched and respectfully spread out on the verandah for him to sit upon.

“Sahib, please take his photograph,” said Aghanlal, “this is a rare occasion for us.”

I had come to accept my role as unofficial village photographer. It was a way through which I thought I could reciprocate the kindness and regard that I received, even if only in small measure. With the help of a friend, I had found a studio in Bhopal where I could get quality pictures printed out at reasonable rates every once in a couple of months. But the job also meant being summoned to take pictures at unexpected times. Today was a sombre occasion, and I wasn’t carrying my camera. Luckily, the smartphone came in handy.

His attention drawn to me, a foreigner, the baba wanted to know who I was.

Aghanlal took it upon himself to respond.

“This Sahib is from Bengloor. He lives with us, and eats with us. He wants to know how we celebrate festivals, how we conduct weddings, how we do kheti-badi (farming). He takes photos of everything and gives them back to us. He will get you the photo that he has just taken. But he is hard of hearing so you must speak a little loudly.”

The baba nodded, not fully understanding, much bewildered.

I showed him the picture I had taken.

The baba broke into a smile. “Will I really get this photo?” he asked eagerly.

“Yes, of course. I will hand the copy over to the people of this house. You will get it from them.”

“Please do so. Many people take pictures of me and go away but never send a copy across.”

“Don’t worry. I will print this one out for you.”

Some days later, I was sitting with men gathered at kotwar Maghu’s house, writing notes while the men enjoyed a smoke from a pipe being passed around.

“You will become a very big Sahib after you have finished your studies, won’t you, Sahib?” Basori asked, as he gazed at the words in blue ink filling my sheets. I looked up at him embarrassedly. My thoughts rewound darkly to a newspaper article I had read a few months earlier: several hundreds of thousand candidates had applied to 300-odd vacancies for the post of government peon in Uttar Pradesh. Including about 250 PhDs. “Future tense,” went my self-prognosis. How was I to explain to Basori?

But, perhaps thankfully, without waiting for a reply he went on, “Don’t forget us, Sahib. No matter where you are you must visit us every year.”

“I will, Basoribhai,” I replied, trying to think of something more to say but finding myself tongue-tied.

A visitor arrived. It turned out to be Maghu’s brother-in-law. He was from the same village as the baba, but it did not strike me immediately. Basori’s attention was diverted, and I resumed writing.  

Some minutes later, I took a break, and stretched my fingers. As if he had been waiting, Maghu leaned over.

“Remember the baba who visited us last week? He is asking after you. He has sent a message across. ‘Please remember to bring my photo,' say this to the Sahib of Saraidadar.”

(Concluded)

ΘΘΘ

(This is a dramatised account based on experiences in the field. The names of the characters are pseudonyms, as is that of the village, Saraidadar, which, following local naming conventions, means 'table-top hill of sal trees.' I acknowledge valuable feedback from Krishnapriya Tamma, Arshiya Bose, and Vena Kapoor; critique and criticism, however, may be directed to me alone.)

The Sahib of Saraidadar, Part 1 of 2

(Illustration below by Sandeep Sen. Originally published on Pangolin Prophecies, a blog maintained by Krishnapriya Tamma.)

“Jai Ram, Sahib,” said the man walking up the dirt road as he arrived within greeting distance, deferentially drooping his shoulders and folding his hands into a loose namaste. Aghanlal was elder to me, broad-chested and well-built, a quiet and hard-working Gond adivasi farmer in Saraidadar, the village which had started out as the site of ethnographic fieldwork but which, after several months of living in, I had come to call home.  

I cringed at being referred to as Sahib. I longed to be treated as one among the people of my village, deserving of no special appellation or hospitality. After all, by now I had spent considerable time with them, eating (and drinking!), making bricks together, celebrating festivals, accompanying my neighbours into the forest, and trying my hand at ploughing and weeding the fields.

“Aghanbhai, meherbani karke mujhe Sahib mat bulao (please do not call me Sahib),” I said with a smile, trying to hide the exasperation within.

Aghanlal looked at me, still deferential. “Ji (Yes), Sahib,” he said. And then added, “Where are you going, Sahib?” 

I gave up. “To the millet fields,” I replied, and walked on resignedly. I had tried hard to get everyone to call me Venkatbhai or plain Bhaiyya with a singular lack of success. Gloomily, I reflected on my inability to erase the hierarchy that separated me from the people I lived amongst. 

Maghu, Saraidadar’s ever-bedraggled but perceptive kotwar, was one of the people with whom I had remonstrated early on.  “All human beings are equal,” I had announced loftily, “None is superior or inferior. The plough you wield is as respectable as my pen.” 

“But you are educated,” Maghu reasoned, “You can speak many languages. You can travel to different places with ease. We can’t do that. That’s why you are a Sahib.”

Maghu was referring to the experience of two men in the village, Basorisingh and Amarlal, who had been taken all the way to Tamilnadu by a labour contractor from the plains, and ‘sold’ to a businessman there. The duo was put to work in a stone quarry, subjected to much physical abuse, and suffered grievously from their lack of knowledge of Tamil, the local language. They eventually escaped six months later in an adventure worthy of filling a film-script. When Amarlal narrated his story to me I felt deeply embarrassed, even ashamed, being Tamil myself. In my early days, I also feared reprisal. Instead, however, the duo responded with disarming geniality, periodically trying out their smattering of Tamil on me. Much to my amusement, if we were in a group, one of them would turn to me and say, “Ae Sahib, say something in your language.”  I would comply, and leave my little audience, who could not understand a word, completely baffled. Except Basori and Amarlal, that is, who used the opportunity to crow about their travels, Sindbad or Gulliver-style, to a foreign land where everyone spoke a strange-sounding, incomprehensible tongue! 

For all the justification that Maghu offered, and the elevation in social status that Basori and Amarlal received, ‘Sahib’ triggered images of the feared colonial official, whose imprint on the Maikal Hills, where Saraidadar lies, runs deep. A recurring theme in discussions of the past was how villagers would flee into the deep forest if they so much as caught a glimpse of a man in full pants, all the more so if he had white skin. One middle-aged Baiga friend of mine went further: in his father’s time, he claimed, the sight of a shoe-print was enough for Baiga men to take flight. 

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the colonial government of the Central Provinces went about reserving sal and teak dominated forest strands on the one hand, and encouraging clearing of forests for agricultural expansion on the other. The white Sahib’s aims came in conflict with the shifting cultivation practices of the forest-dwelling Baiga. Not only were the Baiga in need of occupational reform, decided the colonial Sahibs, but they also required the white man’s civilizing touch. The government outlawed shifting cultivation, and invited Gond farmers to cultivate up in the hills so that the Baiga could learn from them to use the plough, drive oxen, and settle down as ‘civilized’ agriculturists. The Gond were higher up the civilization scale than the Baiga but only just. A large number of Gond had themselves been shifting cultivators till a decade or two previously. Colonial rule did not survive to see the pyrrhic success of the policy. The Baiga were forced to give up shifting cultivation for settled agriculture, but, in the process, emerged impoverished, and their self-image emasculated by the forced transition. In a reflection of the shifting yardsticks of what it means to be civilized, despite turning into farmers, in the present, the Baiga continue to be arraigned by government officials (and upper caste farmers and traders in the foothills) as ‘backward’, even ‘primitive’, because they grow food not to sell in the market but for their own consumption. 

The notion that they are backward (picchde) has permeated deep into the consciousness of people in the Maikal Hills. The adivasis, both Baiga and Gond, are at the bottom of the local social hierarchy, the upper echelons of which are filled with the Hindu caste-folk farming and trading in the foothills. They are supposedly backward on two counts: socially, because of their (low) position in the caste ladder, and economically, because they are poor and their agriculture is ‘primitive.’ This is a message that has been repeatedly sent out by persons wielding power for more than a hundred years, including Sahibs in the government, petty officials, and upper caste traders. Sadly but unsurprisingly, the message has been considerably internalised, and not only informs how the adivasis view themselves but also reflects in a meek disposition towards persons of authority. Even adivasis who secure government jobs often gradually distance themselves from their ‘backward’ relatives. Meanwhile, the social hierarchy is a graded one. So, although both Baiga and Gond are adivasis, the Gond consider themselves relatively socially superior. However, the redeeming feature is that the Baiga and Gond, along with the Panika and Ahir (who comprise the  non-adivasi minority in the uplands) form strong friendships among each other without allowing community identities to come in the way. The hierarchy is less rigid in the uplands than in the foothills. 

Nonetheless, it is poignant to see how self-perceptions of being backward play out in everyday life. A visible marker is the submissiveness that marks villager interaction with the modern-day brown Sahib, typically a government official, even a forest guard or office chaprasi. The Sahib often sports a paunch, rides a motorcycle, and deliberately speaks in Hindi rather than the local dialect. He is not averse to carrying himself with self-importance, and often speaks to village-folk in a hectoring tone. When his temper is roused his language may betray rich knowledge of incestuous sexual proclivities. Over time, the Sahib has acquired a female counterpart, the Madam, whose tongue, at times, is sharper than the Sahib’s. 

I badly wanted to shed the ‘Sahib’ tag. 

Ω

Manglu Dada, an elderly Baiga farmer, was one of my closest confidants in the village. A friend, philosopher, and guide. We were walking back from his millet field one afternoon when I thought it fit to badger him. 

“I’m a lot younger to you. And, as you well know now, I’m only a student. Don’t you think you should call me by name and stop calling me Sahib?”

In his characteristic slow but measured way of speaking, Manglu Dada replied, “From the earliest times, Sahib is how we have always addressed visitors from outside. It is a term of respect. That is why everyone calls you Venkat Sahib.”

I launched into a monologue on how all human beings were supposed to be equal. Did he not think that the Baiga themselves were responsible for upholding the hierarchical relationship with government officials and non-adivasi outsiders because of their overly deferential attitude? 

With no trace of annoyance, Manglu Dada patiently reprised his words in response. “In these parts we have always called outsiders Sahib.”

“Okay. Now let’s say there’s an educated Baiga, like our schoolteacher Manish, in shirt and trousers who visits us from a different village. Will you call him Sahib or not?” I asked combatively.

“Of course not,” Manglu Dada looked at me, puzzlement writ large on his face.

“Why not?” I demanded to know.

By now, the gentle Manglu Dada looked bewildered, even scared by my belligerent questioning. Almost pleadingly, he replied, “Because he is only a Baiga…” 

Ω

A few weeks later, after Durga Pooja had begun, I found myself in the crowded weekly market in Kosampur, the block headquarters. I bumped into Jaymatibai and Sukwariyabai as I rose from my haunches at a vegetable stall. They were both middle-aged women from Saraidadar, given to banter and teasing. 

“Ae Sahib, what have you been buying? Any sweets for us?” Jaymati, the more playful among the two, grabbed my bag and began scanning its contents. I was used to the ritual. It happened every time I visited the market, one of the many occasions when I felt like a research specimen under investigation by curious village anthropologists.  

As I waited for Jaymati to return the bag to me, Sukwariya spoke up light-heartedly. “Sahib, lend us fifty rupees. We want to go see the Kali pandal in the next village. It is the only pandal of its kind. Everywhere else it is Durgaji. We want to see Kali Mata. She looks like this and everyone says she is really ferocious.” Sukwariya dilated her eyes and stuck her tongue out in mischievous imitation as Jaymati chuckled. 

I coolly ignored the request for money, another thing I had become accustomed to, especially on market days. It wasn’t difficult. One pretended that the other person was joking, and cracked another joke in response. We moved off in separate directions.

Twenty minutes later I sighted the duo again. My antennae were on alert, and I tried to hurry away. 

I had been spotted though. And, to my pleasant surprise, it was not as “Sahib” that I was hailed.     

“Ae bhaiyya, come here,” I could hear Jaymati calling after me and waving her hands. Pleased as punch, I turned and went up to her and Sukwariya. 

“Here, have some,” Jaymati held out a piece of jalebi, the trademark market day sweet, which sold at ten rupees for three pieces. 

I accepted it in good humour, and began munching. “I’m thrilled you called me Bhaiyya,” I was planning to say. 

“Isn’t it nice?” Sukwariya asked. I nodded, my mouth full.

“Bhaiyya, please lend us fifty rupees. We want to go see Kali Mata...”

Minutes later, I walked on wryly, my wallet lightened. But, later, when I reflected on the incident, I could not help smiling to myself. If adivasi women could make strategic use of the Sahib’s weaknesses it was surely cause for minor celebration – in the hope that they would be able to employ similar cleverness in dealing with the more powerful Sahibs who exercised control over their lives. 

Ω

But the incident was no turning point. People still called me Sahib, Jaymati and Sukwariya including. It was not so much the appellation itself that bothered me as the fact that it stood for an institutionalised lack of egalitarianism, a set of social relations that set up a pecking order partly on the basis of birth in a particular social group. My ‘struggle’ would continue. But would I succeed?

(to be continued)