SACRIFICE, AHIMSA, AND VEGETARIANISM: POGROM AT THE DEEP END OF NON-VIOLENCE Volume II A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi January 2006 Chapter 6.0 Middle class and scheduled caste 6.1 Ranjit and his realiti In 1999 in Ahmedabad, I met Ranjitbhai for the first time. I was immediately attracted to his intelligence and curiosity. We got along well and spent much time together driving around the city in search of lunch experiences. These trips more than once resulted in a visit to one of his many sisters who live scattered in diverse neighborhoods throughout the city. Being a prior instructor of Bharat, who shares my flat, he also visits me at home often and even stays over night. Usually we eat meat, and Ranjit likes best “soup items,” preferably goat in a rich thick, heavy sauce. Once he also invites me to his home village and his mother prepares chicken for us. He always balances “hot” food with “cold” food. Meat is a hot item. It heats the senses, the mind, and should not be taken in excess and preferably with some yoghurt (dahi) or curds (chaas). These cool items in turn should never be mixed with lemon, for example, which supposedly leads to severe skin diseases. Ranjit is very particular about these things as are many residents in the city. He has an entire mental list of do’s and don’ts that he has learned at home or reads in the occasional health manuals that he buys. The fact that I display precious little attention of these rules, and don’t develop skin rashes, convinced him that Germans, Muslims, or both, have different bodies than Indians. He never takes my example to be necessarily applicable to himself. I can never help but sense a certain fascination on his part for my own promiscuity in eating and drinking. I always excuse my excess by the fact that I could afford it financially in India. As in other contexts, however, the lack of care to ritualize eating, that is, the lack of control, is on the one hand seen as childish and immature, but on the other also desired and enjoyed. 347 348 I was surprised to learn that on several occasions Ranjit called himself a vegetarian. I only realized this strange fact, because for a while I made it an annoying insistence to ask everyone about meat consumption in the city. Discussions of the matter were so frequent that almost all of my friends and acquaintances became involved in it at some point in time. Ranjit called himself a vegetarian in the presence of only certain people, members of middle classes and upper castes, or people like Bharat who seemed to put much emphasis on these matters. But what was surprising was not the fact that he concealed strategically what he sometimes ate. In a social milieu that understands meat consumption to be equal to illicit alcohol, illicit sex, or smoking, this behavior was to be expected. Rather, what astonished me is that he voiced his assertion to be shuddh shakahari (vegetarian) in my presence without having informed me of his deceit, nor with any seeming discomfort towards me. In other words, he never felt compelled to explain himself to me afterwards. Shymalbhai is not in self-denial and has no problem to admit that he eats meat, and defending the practice vehemently at times. Instead his calibrated behavior is overly conscious of the milieu around him and the communicative power of meat in the academic circles that he naturally frequents. Ranjit does not actively try to conceal, but rather he tries to avoid a specific form of silent signification, which he knows all too well. He simply resists offering certain people a reason to feel confirmed about what he signifies. Since I was working on the topic, he naturally felt that his behavior did not need further explanation. Financially secure, Ranjitbhai wears neatly ironed Western pants and shirt, as well as clean closed-toe shoes. He abhors the sight of sandals. In many ways he resembles the young Mohandas K. Gandhi: small head, intelligent eyes, wiry body, and he speaks a simple and competent English, which sometimes becomes overly polite, as if to compensate for the lack of deference he is able to express in English. 349 He fancies English sayings and proverbs that have made a deep impression on him. Ranjit is impressed by the expressive power of sayings, whether from local poets, English thinkers, or lyrics from Western rock stars, like Madonna. His occasional use of the wrong verb, or Gujarati syntax in an English sentence, never paralyzes or stops his flow of thought. Although his mother tongue, Gujarati, is far better than his English, he rarely mixes registers, or uses Gujarati words in English sentences. Either because he is a language teacher or because he must keep the two registers apart, I never hear him speak Gujarezi, the wild mix of both English and Gujarati common among his socio-economic class in Ahmedabad. Gujarezi facilitates abbreviated communication as it allows one to evade complicated translations by framing sentences spiked with words from the other language. When Ranjit is excited, however, he loses his English speech, sometimes rendering him totally inarticulate. These states resemble attacks, where even words that he has pronounced many times before become abbreviated in forms hard to understand. He enters into a register between English and Gujarati, where English syntax, phonology, and vocabulary are shadowed by a Gujarati, which rises to the fore at times, breaking its way through the language he studiously cultivates. It is as if his focus has shifted to Gujarati, but his mouth still voices English words, or what’s left of them. The result is a debris of English, neither intelligible in one register, nor in the other. It is often in moments when Ranjit wants to be most meaningful that, tragically, all meaning escapes him. I learn to stop him in mid sentence and ask him to continue in Gujarati. But often he unconsciously reverts back to English, as if he had to say it in English to satisfy his demand of expression.1 I never quite understand why 1My attempt to explain Ranjit’s linguistic oddities may be mere speculation. As far as I know, however, his stammering never happened in the register of Gujarati, or in writing, but only when he had to perform spoken English. Saying something in English is for many Gujarati speakers something like 350 he does not mix registers like other interlocutors do when speaking to me. I myself have worked through a number of languages and often am in the position of inhabiting several at the same time. In my teenage years, I stuttered, and still today I fear falling back into it (especially when thinking about it). Hence I quickly came to empathize with Ranjit’s problems as they remind me of my own stuttering. The feeling of being incapable of manipulating sound coming out of one’s own mouth in order to create meaning, especially in moments when it counts, is frightening. Despite these problems, Ranjit resolutely maintains his self-confidence. He never lets his stammer hinder his curiosity and pleasure at conversation in a social context, even though in many of these contexts he is expected to fail, for Ranjit is a Dalit, a member of the scheduled castes, one of Gandhi’s “children of God.” He is the very first member of his village group to obtain an academic position, as professor at his college, part of Gujarat University. Ranjit is interested in foreigners and I am not his first such acquaintance. He once had a Thai friend, and he is fond of telling me of their funny encounters and misunderstandings. He also sports a Kenyan friend at the university, with whom he drinks tea regularly. He is enjoying the pleasure of difference, and places much emphasis on asking me things, making me describe details, and observing me when I speak, act, and or explain something. He is never shy of critique and always takes me at my word. The second time we met in 1999, he makes me an unexpected compliment. He says, “Hallo Parvis, let me tell you, really, you have none such distance upon you.” I did not understand what he meant. Ranjit was commenting on the fact that I had sat next to him and eaten with him, a Dalit. coming to a punch line. Once it is in English it is somehow more objectified and substantive than before. 351 6.1.1 Hallo and listen Ranjit often says “hallo” when addressing someone in a conversation, such as, “Hallo! Let me tell you...,” or “Hallo we have to take the other restaurant as I am very much too obliged to visit my other sister also.” The “hallo” inaugurates any significant argument or statement. The intonation of his “hallo” is the same as when Gujaratis answer the telephone, and initially I find it funny. Soon however, I grow annoyed of it. It takes me almost a year to disabuse Ranjit of his habit of saying “hallo” when he actually means to say “listen…” Later I happen upon a popular English language manual, “The Rapidex English Speaking Course” (from Pustak Mahal, New Delhi), a book, which can be found in many middle to lower middle class Gujarati homes, often on a coffee table right next to the phone.