Book Review - "Mahashweta" - Sudha Murty

References:

After reading the books

1. गोष्टी माणसांच्या

2. Wise and Otherwise by Sudha Murty, I wanted to read more of her work and hence when I came to know of the Book Mahashweta, I picked it up.

Later on I discovered that there are two books with the name Mahashweta, one in Marathi and One in Kannada and both are on the same theme. The famous Marathi Serial 'Mahashweta' was based on the Marathi book, but nevertheless, I wanted to read both. :)

The book:

The story reveals around a character called Anupama, who is a beautiful and talented girl from a poor family. Dr. Anand, from a rich family marries her, after initially getting attracted to her beauty.

After the marriage, she develops the disease 'Lukoderma' and thrown out of family because of orthodox mother-in-law and not so supportive husband.

The next part, focuses on the pains and suffering she has to face in the society and the way she survives it. Her best friend in college, persuades her to move out of her Father's village and come to the city of Bombay. There she finds job and becomes financially and emotionally independent. The ups and downs in her life are beautifully carved out.

Review:

1. Nicely written story

2. Touching the human psyche

3. Thought provoking

4. Survivor Story

Few Excerpts from the book:

"My Experience has taught me this. I have come to realize that courage and confidence are the real wealth in life. Education can improve your chances of success, but ultimately you have to face life all alone. I don't depend on any guru, nor do I read any philosophy. My conscience is my guru and it guides me well." - Anupama says while talking to Dr. Satya.

"I believe that when students love the teacher, they learn to love the subject, too. A teacher is forever young at heart. History has taught me a great lesson. People who built forts and won may kingdoms are not remembered today. I don't do my work so that anybody should remember me; I do it because it gives me satisfaction and contentment." - Anupama says while talking to Dr. Satya.

IT is a caste

I hope you read the word I.T. correctly where I am referring to “Information Technology” and not any other full form of the word.

How do you identify an IT guy? Following are some of the common behavioural patterns found among these species.

1. He goes to work at 9 AM but there is no fixed time for him to return home (it varies from 4PM to 2AM the next day).

2. On Weekends these species doesn’t do any constructive work apart from spending money.

3. You may find these guys in all big malls of cities on weekends checkin out a movie for 600 bucks which actually worth 100 bucks.

4. Bargaining is a strict no-no for them. If you are a vegetables vendor or an auto driver, you can ask for whatever amount you want and they will pay it.

5. Dilbert.is their favourite cartoon.

6. They have a very strange vocabulary which they use in daily communications as well e.g. “ASAP”, “EOD”, “no issues”.

7. You may find them showing up their Access Cards at all kinds of locks such as house doors, lifts, cars.

What to do with all these guys? Irrespective of which background and geographies they are coming from, what their families do, and especially what is their caste, they all behave similarly. So a thought came to my mind, why not have I.T. as a separate caste for these species.

Castes, as they are being used by the politicians for securing their vote banks is not the original purpose why they were there. The Bhagavad Gita says varnas are decided based on Guna (Qualities) and Karma(the work). Just to elaborate a bit more on this, one’s caste can not be strictly decided by their birth and their parents caste, but it should be a more complex process. It should consider the education of the person, what kind of qualities does he/she possess and the kind of work he/she is doing. e.g. Sutar ( Carpenter ), Sonar ( Goldsmith ), Nhai ( Barber ), teachers, traders, farmers, musicians and even politicians.

The caste system became rigid in India, because most of the time a Goldsmith’s son will become a Goldsmith and this continued for generations. Then people started saying that it’s in their blood. It got endorsed from the intra-caste marriages. Marriages within the caste were preferred because, people had joint families and it was easy for a girl to settle in an environment where the customs and rituals are similar as they are at her place. But, that is not the purpose why Castes exists.

The whole and sole purpose of caste system was for the better administrations. For all kind of farmers the king can apply same tax laws and they shouldn’t be same as that applied for teachers. If for some year rains were bad and the harvest was not good the King knows the category of people to exempt from taxes for that year. That was the sole purpose of caste system.

Nowadays, the cast system is completely anachronic. In its original form the caste system served as an instrument of law and order in a society where mutual consent was the base rather than compulsion. The Vedas placed no importance on the caste system. And even in current times we should not. It’s better if government completely rules out castes from the society and of course they will need our support.

P.S.: This article is not meant to hurt anyone’s feelings and should be taken in light hearted way and a food for thought. I personally don’t believe in Caste system and any kind of discrimination based of Caste/race/color.