Atheist, Temple and Mutton Shop

- Jainandan
Translation by Sitaram Shastry

Parshuram Pandey despised God and he was a confirmed atheist. But it was an irony that he had to become a priest in a temple. He had no other easier means for subsistence. Knowing that he was a Brahmin, people did not want to accept him for the job of a labourer or any other mean job. He too saw that nowhere else he could get the comfort and respect priesthood could offer. Just because he was a priest people started touching his feet, revering and talking with him respectfully. He did not like people touching his feet but he could not refuse either. People consider one eligible for such respect just because he is a Brahmin although he himself did not believe in it.

This temple had been recently built in the village of Dusadhs and Musahars by themselves.

Before joining this temple, Parashuram was running from pillar to post. He had approached many capable relatives and acquaintances of his caste but nobody helped him.

Jagdata Upadhyay was his cousin-in-law. He was a big transporter. He had a big fleet of trucks, buses and cars, and a palatial building. Many drivers and many servants worked under him. Parashuram flattered him, almost prostrated before him, " Dear Brother-in-law, I wandered here and there leading a dog's life. Keep me as a driver, or as one of your servants."

Upadhyay said in an expressionless and stern voice, "You may live in my house as a guest for any number of days, but I won't keep you as a servant. You are one of my people, if anything goes wrong I will not be able to tell you anything. People will unnecessarily point finger at me and say that I am making my relative do slave labour for me."

Parshuram was badly disappointed. People say that relatives and men of one's own caste are much favoured in the world. However, his own experience did not at all confirm this. So far nobody from among his caste men helped him even a bit. On the contrary, people of his own caste grabbed everything from him and forced him into the awful life of an orphan. Perhaps people blindly use caste for only one thing, and that is in casting their votes. However incapable, mean, cruel and useless the candidate may be, the vote is cast in his favour only if he belongs to one's caste. There is no greater criterion for casting a vote than caste. That is why some people win on the strength of the people of their caste without doing anything, and remain in power for years together despite being most indolent and incompetent. Legislator Lokesh Tiwary elected from Parashuram's constituency did nothing for him though he implored him many times for help. Yet he always voted for him in elections. Now he feels it was an out and out a mistake for him to do so.

Caste has one more use, and that is marriage. Mostly people marry in their own caste. Here too, astonishingly, while people search for a match from among one's caste members, they do not hesitate to squeeze the bride's parents, like sugarcane, in the name of dowry, and if it is short of their expectations they may even mercilessly burn the bride belonging to their own caste. What sort of affinity is this in the name of caste cohesion! As far as Parashu's case is concerned, caste members did not consider him worth to arrange a match for him! Due to poverty and his orphaned state, people did not reckon him any better than a cripple. Thus caste proved futile for him.

Disillusionment with caste impelled Parashu to refuse to accept Brahmin high caste and Harijan lower. Higher is one whose deeds are higher. A person whose deeds are greater may belong to any caste. Madhok Majhi was several times elected as a Member of Parliament taking advantages of a reserved seat and once he was fortunate to become a minister too in the central government. He got many schemes executed for this area. He got many a Brahman and Rajput boy employed in Railways and Public Works Department or helped them get contracts, whereas Lokesh Tiwary did not do a thing in public interest. On the contrary, he used his influence to dispossess and ravage the people of the village.

Bhuneshar Choubey of his own caste was the biggest landowner of the village…He was notorious for sexually exploiting dozens of Harijan women and keeping dozens of Harijan workers as bonded labourers treated as animals. He did not allow anybody from the village to prosper. He even disliked men of his caste build a concrete building.

When Parshuram Pandey's father opposed him, he became his father's sworn enemy and one day the old man's dead body was found in the temple of Kasari Dev. It was a clear warning that anyone coming in his way would meet the same fate. His mother had earlier committed suicide. This was also caused by the demon, Bhuneshar. In the absence of his father, the demon used to visit his house to defile his mother.

When Parshu's father came to know about this he decided to remain hiding in the house and cut the penis of the perpetrator with a sharp sickle. This bloody penis is the root cause of all the conflicts, the cause of many a rape and of illicit pregnancies. Why not eliminate this itself! Mother understood that in this determination to 'do or die' the latter would be preferred. Will the diabolic penchant of the perpetrator concede without suppressing any opposition? Thus she had committed suicide by hanging herself from a roof beam.

Parashuram was just 12 years old at that time. His plight became like that of a child lost in a fair. He grew somehow like a weed, living sometimes at grandmother's house, sometime at aunt's or that of any other relative, by turns till he was removed. Children sans parents automatically develop a thick skin to bear the hardships. When Parashuram was no more a child he realised that he was like a dry leaf fallen from a tree. In this world and such a person does not have any well-wisher; neither any relative nor any caste affiliation. Only one person pitied his wayward and pathetic condition and he was neither his relative nor belonged to his caste.

Old Madhok Majhi, former Member of Parliament, took him along with him and introduced him to Tularam, chief of the committee of a newly constructed temple in the neighboring hamlet of Harijans. He recommended to him, "He is a poor Brahman, keep him as a priest in the temple."

Tularam remained non-plussed with hesitance in his eyes. Madhok sensed his feelings and said, "Don't take him like the earlier Pandits who made bitter face at the proposal and left. Parshuram is free from the spectre of his caste and so I am confident that this man will certainly stay here."

Tularam said in clear terms, "We the people of low castes had always been discriminated in public temples, and so we had to separate our God. Now that this temple is located in the centre of the Harijan village, it is obvious that only the poor and dirty people called Nanh and Shudras will come here for worshipping. Sensing this many Pandits have avoided this temple so far. If you want to stay here we will be glad."

After all, what a blind man needs, just two eyes! Parashu said, " give me a chance. In my present condition I will hang on to any little sustenance available. And the temple, a concrete shimmering holy building, is a very good place to stay, where a deity lives, though made of a stone, adored by the entire village. Association with the temple means associating with thousands of the people of the village. What can be better for a person, who in the absence of any other means of livelihood is now getting the support of thousands of hands."