Letter to my greatest granddad

Dated: 28th September 2006

Dear greatest granddad,

Hope everything is fine up there in heaven. We are all fine here. Just yesterday, I was reading your diary entry. Being a descendent of Sudra, the world has not been very kind to us. For thousands of years we have been used and abused like a slave.

After you died, Life was normal for sometime until all hell broke loose. The Kshatriyas(decendents of Kshatriya) started fighting for more land. Their greed for more power made them fight huge battles killing millions of soldiers. While us sudras fought a war for them on bare foot, giving up our lives for them, they got all the attention in the camera playing with those firecracker fit bow and arrows (I am not sure if DD had relayed Mahabharat in those days). After centuries of battle in which nothing was gained and lots of lives were lost, everyone's hope turned towards the God.

With everyone's belief in God increasing day by day, Brahmin's took control over the proceedings. Even Kshathriya's bowed to Brahmins. Everything, starting from the current affairs to family affairs needed a Brahmin's approval which was considered to have a God's stamp in it. Life became very peaceful for sometime, until all sorts of blind beliefs started coming out in the name of God. Imagine a world where cows were considered sacred and humans like us the 'untouchables'. As always we sudras suffered. All this continued for a few more centuries.

Don't know what prompted a change. Probably it was the emergence of science. The same 'forbidden fruit' that caused us all the trouble during your times, helped a guy define gravity. Though people's belief in God did not vanish completely, blind belief which had no explanation started being questioned. There were times when 'brahmins in the west' had once burnt a guy alive for saying that the earth was not flat. Such days were gone. Slowly science started taking over our lives. Role of kings and queens was just to sign documents and passing bills. Role of a Brahmin was just to perform prayers to keep up the world’s belief in God. The world needed a new leader now. Money became the chosen one. Money wrote the rules which ruled the world. The more money one had, more the rules bent towards him. This is where the Vaishya's took over the world. If you need to own your neighbour's well, all that you had to do was to sneak a gun into his house and declare him as a terrorist. The world would believe you, cos you happen to have the most important weapon, MONEY.

Dear grandad, all your sons except us have had a nice time on this earth. You gave them weapons like land, God and money to rule above us all. What did you give us? Nothing. Just because one of your son decided to use a sickle for living instead of a sword, is it fair that all his descendents suffer? What was his mistake in the first place? For centuries we have blamed you for our sufferings. I am sure from time to time you would have received a lot of such letters from us.

But, don’t worry. Today I am writing this letter to tell you a happy news. Its time for sudras to rule the world. With the recent reservation bills passing, India is showing the world how to respect us and treat us as 'more than equals'. These days while others slog it out for a seat in a decent professional college, all that we need is just a certificate to prove we are sudras. Infact, so many of the reserved seats go unclaimed that I have decided to enroll myself for engineering, a medical and a law seat all at once. Why waste free stuff...rite? Finally the whole world will realise our value and bow to us:).

your loving grandson,
son of sudra

Disclaimer: This post is not directed to any specific section of people. Its only intention is to point a finger at the flaws in this caste system. I do believe someone somewhere introduced the caste system with a good intention, which was…progress of the mankind. If caste system was the need of the hour at that time, I believe removing it is the need of the hour right now. Its not just in India, every civilization has followed such a bias in their society. While the west seems to have moved away from all this, we Indians are stuck to it. If 10 Indians meet, we split ourselves in the name of religion. If 10 from the same religion meet, we split in the name of caste. Oh! It doesn’t end there with caste, we have like south India vs north India fight, in south India we have AP vs TN fight, in TN we have Chennai vs Coimbatore fight. I don’t think the british had to work hard to “Divide and Rule”. I guess they probably learnt this “Divide and Rule” concept from us. Hope all this ends one day.