Upper class Upper Caste Brahminism in Bangalore

[KP Sasi]

There is a general pretension that Brahmins are clean and Dalits are unclean. A few decades back I shifted to Bangaore staying in a colony called JP Nagar. In that area, I was the only non-Brahmin. During those days paurakarmikas (used to come to clean the roads) at around 6.30 pm. They were paid less than minimum wages. Since they did not have money for the bus tickets most of them used to walk to their places one or two hours earlier they used to eat food only once a day
after work at night. When they were tired they used to request for water from the Brahmin houses. None of them used to give them water since caste was an issue. so many if them used to come to my house for drinking water. That became a problem for around four educated Brahmins nearby. They lobbied with my landlord and complained against me. Once when I came out of the house, there were around 6 Brahmins shouting at my behavior. For five minutes, I listened to them. Then I lashed out to them. `They clean your shit and you can't even give them water to drink?' I couldn't remember the nature of abuses I used against them in English. But my sound level was much higher than them. Slowly, the Brahmins with their pretensions of decency left one by one. The landlord Brahmin left in the beginning itself. This was my first experience of the decent looking English speaking Brahmins and their deep rooted caste consciousness. None of them smiled at me after that incident. But I kept telling them,`Hi' whenever I met them. It was not an individual problem. It was a social problem