I remember writing a while ago about how Shashank called me up from Bangalore, where he was studying, to ask if we were TamBrahms. At that time, I was thrilled that we had successfully brought up our sons without telling them about castes and races. A few years later, I realised that the only reason we could have maintained this 'caste-less' bubbly is because we DID belong to the upper caste! I still cringe at the thought that I enjoyed a privilege that was given to me just by a chance of birth, and felt great about it. T M Krishna and Amit Varma's very interesting discussion on Caste, Gender and Karnatik music here - https://seenunseen.in/episodes/2020/3/1/episode-162-caste-gender-karnatik-music/ - discussed exactly this and mentioned this poem by Akhil Katyal.
One day, when he was
about ten or twelve,
he asked his mother
“What is my caste?
Some boys in the
school were asking,
I didn’t know what
to say.” The mother,
got up in the middle
of her supper, “Beta,
if you don’t know it by
now, it must be upper.”
about ten or twelve,
he asked his mother
“What is my caste?
Some boys in the
school were asking,
I didn’t know what
to say.” The mother,
got up in the middle
of her supper, “Beta,
if you don’t know it by
now, it must be upper.”
Katyal is a Delhi-based poet
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