When Ganesh from a place called Kumbhasi which is about 100 kms to the north of Mangalore invited me for an interaction with Koraga children he sounded a bit hesitant. When I gladly agreed he asked me about the expected remuneration when I said I don’t expect any he sounded a bit relieved. Then came the expenses and I told him that they could if they wanted pay for the fuel for my car for the trip and added that it should not be a criterion for organizing the interaction because I could always afford to pay for it myself. Since there was no response from him till yesterday, the day previous to the date of the interaction I assumed that they might have had some problems. But, I got a call in the evening that the program was on. Koragas are the first inhabitants of the district and can now be classified as the most back ward too. My first memories of them are of people fighting for leftovers on the discarded leaves after religious functions. There would be dogs, cows, crows and along with them the Koragas fighting for their share in dustbins by the roadsides where these would be dumped. They would also weave baskets, trays and such. They were also useful to transfer one’s bad luck to by giving them food to which the affected persons nail clippings, hair or some other thing would be added! It was also their duty to beat drums and dance for temple rituals- filing which they would invite the wrath of the presiding deity. Of course all these have been now banned and conducting any one of such would invite punishment under the atrocities act. These practices were collectively called as agelu or ajalu which have been now totally banned. Ganesh whose full name is Ganesh Koraga was my host for the interaction and he told me that the main purpose of it would be to raise the level of confidence of the children and try to get rid of their superstitious fears. There were children from the age of ten onwards, a few younger and some older volunteers too. The interactions went on wonderfully with their involvement, questions and more than that discussion from some of the older ones. Most of discussions were from one girl called Vinita who was a diploma holder in education and was also doing the job of taking classes for the children. By the way, the whole concept of the camp was the brainchild of Ganesh who wanted to see that a dozen children whose residences were nearby were kept occupied! He told me that these children were admitted to schools with great difficulty as their parents were unwilling to school them. He was afraid that if they were left alone during the vacations for school, they too would follow their parents! To this group he ha added some other children from Koraga families and was keeping them occupied with various activities like drumming, making slay sculptures and of course some lessons too. The questions were many starting from a boy narrating as to how he saw a ghost one night which alter on turned out to be a statue! Vinita had questions about how Brahmins can be harmed if touched by dalits or was it the other way around she asked. She was also curious about what were the factors that made them untouchables and I told her to look at Manusmriti- the fountain head of caste based discrimination! I told them all human beings are equal and none can claim superiority over others and I also told them that it also implies that one should not treat others as inferiors too. Ganesh told me about how some follower of a swami asked him to arrange for the swami’s visit to their locality saying that that man’s custom was to do that. For which Ganesh replied that while that would perfectly acceptable to the Koragas, it was their custom that any one who visits their houses should also eat with them! Laughingly Ganesh said the man was not to be seen again! So, Aditya Bhat Gurpur and I thought that it was hint for us too to not to go without having lunch with them and gladly agreed. We never regretted that as the lunch though an extremely simple one was superb in taste. When parting I told Ganesh that I would be always glad to be of help to them to have such programs in the future.
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 16:08:45 +0000
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