I am a Dalit, who are you?

Hi,

Today I saw this vedio from the link I got in another yahoo group and it moved me a lot.

http://www.shivamvij.com/2006/10/i-am-a-dalit-how-are-you.html

Thanks,

Sachi

--Quite mooving .. By birth a persons status is decided in India... I
dont know .....Most of the attrocities isin Hindi belt
-Dr SK Naik

I wish to narrate my experience very close to the Video which vividly comes to even my forgetful mind.

My father sent me (I was 10 year old) to buy coconut from a neighbor Brahmin family - two furlongs away from my house (now it is adjascent to my Kalyana Mantapa built in memory of my mother). During that time, a rupee will fetch 4 fairly big sized nuts and six small sized (currently available in Blore market). It was early morning after which I have to run to the school almost 2 miles away from my house. The B after collecting King George engraved one rupee coin from me, threw five nuts from the cottage [Kotya] balcony [atta] to the ground. All of them scattered in different directions and different distances. I can make out it was purposely done. I collected them joined together by pulling the fibre and making a rope. Later he offered two dosas which I happily ate as we were really poor at that time to support almost 10 family members, of-course everybody had deep mouths except our parents. I was very happy up-to that time but my agony started when B asked me to wipe the floor of the jagali where I ate with cow dung (Ambi). Very hesitatingly I did what he instructed. That was the last visit to his house. The tragic part was, it was my own community man who was cooking, feeding bathing and nursing when he was bedridden with paralytic stroke unable to carry out even his daily duties. Today, he is no more but I still remember all his good qualities and cultures- ever smiling, always he will talk to me whenever we pass each other, always walk instead of taking vehicles and non-interfering in any other’s matters. He was merely following the customs which has been followed, may be by us to please them or prescribed by them. I don’t know which one is correct. Today, the family is in bad shape.

The lesson is: a curse falls on the person who is cursing and in today’s fast pace, it happens even faster.

Shiva Gabbalkaje