Sipping the world through stainless steel glasses
I remember I was almost seven and she was eight. We had just finished playing five rounds of seven stones-(it almost seems prehistoric now but seven stones was a neighborhood classic).It was the peak of summer with its blessings of mangoes, orange colored pop-icicles and the never ending trips to the clay madaka in our kitchen.
I remember running with her into the kitchen. Two purple mugs complete with a grinning Mickey and Minnie mouse, a gift from an aunt abroad stood on the dining table. I handed her one…
“Ayo..athu nimithilla….” ,Rakhamma’s hand snatched the purple glass from her daughter’s hand “Alli steel glass thokko….”.Rakhamma was the maid and through her I learnt my first lesson in how glass divisions work. Purple mugs for some, steel for others.
Almost in every household in India, ubiquitously tucked away in the kitchen, is a steel tumbler and plate. Through an unwritten code passed down through generations, these utensils become the “servant’s glass and plate”. It becomes so much a part of the domestic rhythm , one rarely questions it in the light of a larger socio-political context. And so, like my childhood friend, we learn early in life , that some things are exclusively out of one’s domain. And as we grew up, we learn that the list of things forbidden include- sitting on sofas , eating on tables and so on....Ironically, over cups of tea, sitting on our tables we continuously debate and toss around issues such as inequality, human rights. We see only what we want to see.
Education plays a very small part in shattering our own personal prejudices.Something as “small” as a servant glass exists and bears testimony to the fact it takes a whole paradigm shift to alter the way we think. It is uncomfortable for us to even cross that barrier. A hundred arguments shield us from acknowledging our own nature of bias-“but we don’t know what infections they will bring, they will stop respecting us, they are used to it…”these thoughts shield us from our own fears. The fear of probably relinquishing our own perceived sense of superiority. Somewhere, like the many who we deal with it on a daily basis, they become invisible. It makes it easier.
Nothing brought this home to me like this incident that happened a few months ago.I was visiting a friend of mine with my one year old son and Allamelluamma, who helped look after our son. My friend, during the course of conversation, excused herself and brought out orange juice in tall crystal glasses. She offered it to Allmellu who for a moment was completely caught offguard. She looked at me before hesitantly taking the glass. I was embarrassed by my own sense of discomfort stemming from so many voices running through my head-My friend remained totally oblivious to the entire hidden exchange. There was something definitely different about allamellu on the drive home. A certain sense of lightness of being. “They are very good people….”, was her way of paying tribute. For that one afternoon, she felt like a person, that she too was worthy of a glass.
Our country is an amalgam of contradictions,paradoxes,conventions and histories constantly colliding with each other. And sometimes, it takes a deep sense of personal courage to face these. Perhaps , it is too much of a rose tinted view to expect prejudices to disappear overnight. But perhaps, all it takes is an idea. A tiny train of thought that can steam engine a revolution.
Maybe it can start with a change of glass..
