A ritual of rooftop meetings led to Perumal Murugan’s anthology of Tamil writing on caste

It is eight years since the Koodu meetings have begun. We don’t feel compelled to have a meeting every month. So there have been small gaps and sometimes a long time lapse between meetings. In all, 49 meetings have been held in eight years. The next was the 50th one. We decided to make it a special meeting. We thought bringing out a book would be something special and that is how this book has been written.

In one of the editorial board meetings of Kalachuvadu, when we were discussing future plans, I had suggested a series under the title “Caste and I”. We wondered if it would be feasible to commission such articles from individuals. My friends asked me to write the first one. I thought I would write and start the series but it kept getting postponed. But the thought that many must write on the subject kept simmering in my mind. There were many titles suggested for the book to be published, associated with the 50th meeting. I put forward the title “Caste and I” and everyone unanimously accepted it.

It is very easy to structure how many essays could be written on one subject. The essay has to be experiential. It has to detail incidents. That was all that was needed. This sounds very simple. But there were so many problems we had to face before the essay reached us.

First, we had to prepare ourselves mentally.

In one’s mind one always thinks that talking about caste is akin to using abusive language with swear words that centre around women’s body and society’s notion of morality of women. But in everyday life we think of caste at some moment or the other; talk about it. And incidents related to it do happen. But there is a certain hesitation in speaking about it in the public sphere.

We had to make a lot of effort to make people overcome that hesitation. As a result, the first essay we received was that of Nallusamy. To me it appeared to be a good beginning. All this trouble was for people to open up and write with no holds barred.

Despite all these efforts, some could not write. It was not that they did not know how to write. But there was that hesitation – the fear that writing about caste may lead to this or that problem. Even though they were told not to be afraid even before they had begun to write – to write whatever came to their mind and that, wherever they felt a particular point may lead to trouble, that portion could be removed – some could not allay the fear.

Those who exorcised the fear of retribution submitted good essays. There were some who, after writing the essays, said that they would use a pen name. So, there is a lot of fear in talking about caste in the public sphere. We were very clear in our minds when we decided that no essay would be published under a pseudonym. The notes on the author of each essay have hence been given perspicuously. These are also aspects of being open.

Experiences of caste differ in nature. In the book, different aspects of caste domination have been spoken about. Some take the form of complaints and some others are filled with guilt and regret for having had the mentality that accepted caste and having gone along with it. Some said that they felt light after writing it. There are essays which have tried to find consolation in writing about caste; there are others which have tried to justify various actions. There are some which have turned first-person accounts into third-person accounts, out of timidity or fear, and the authors have hidden themselves in these third-person accounts.

There are some which are like testimonies. Some are autobiographical in style. Some are incomplete because of lack of training in writing. What I feel greatly relieved about is that although given total freedom, there is not a single essay that supports the caste system. This gives me, at least, a little hope for the future.

The locales and the incidents in the essays are different. They made me cry, sigh and laugh when I read them. My intention is not to categorise these various incidents and put them under scrutiny. I think this would be a useful documented source for researchers and those who are active in the eradication of caste since nowhere has caste been spoken about in the public sphere with such explicitness as in this book.

The book does not deal with all the castes but there are significant records of different castes. There are different pictures in the essays about Dalits, other minority castes which keep themselves aloof, and about dominant castes. The views of the authors regarding caste have been brilliantly expressed.

But one is still left with the feeling that there is so much more to say. People of different castes must speak. They must talk in the public sphere about their feelings, talk about incidents in their life, being true to their own conscience. I hope this book will provide the inspiration for it.

I had the illusion at first that putting together the essays would be easy.

But more than the difficulty of getting the essays were the difficulties of time and energy connected with editing them. Only a few essays which seemed rough-hewn have been rejected. Otherwise each essay, when it arrived, brought the joy of excavating some buried treasure. The person with whom I shared this joy and also exchanged ideas with was my wife P Ezhilarasi. My dear students Pa Nallusamy, Re Mahendiran and Pa Kumaresan were always available to deeply discuss the essays and also type them in to create a soft copy. Another good student who showed great interest in the project was A Chinnadurai.

My friend A Ira Venkatachalapathy read some of the essays and opined that this would be an important book. Poet and fiction writer and the present editor of Kalachuvadu, Sukumaran, encouraged me saying that caste has not been spoken about so openly anywhere else. Their many suggestions were very useful. To Kannan of Kalachuvadu Publications, who agreed to publish it when I mentioned such a book and Thanga Akila and others of the Kalachuvadu office team who took a lot of interest in bringing out the book, my thanks are due.

Namakkal 19 October 2013.

Excerpted with permission from “Introduction: The Buried Treasure I found” from Black Coffee in a Coconut Shell, edited by Perumal Murugan, and C S Lakshmi, SAGE Yoda Press.