Buttermilk And Tea

My father said: `Urbanisation and education has eroded caste system in a big way. Your generation would have no idea (of how it was).

` In our village, low-caste people would come to our house often in the summer. They would ask for buttermilk. They were so poor, you would find hardly a drop of milk or buttermilk in their houses.'

'Till my parents were alive, these people never set foot in our courtyard. They would stand in the side-yard, slightly high-up. And guess what would we serve the buttermilk in. Empty shells of coconut. Whenever, after scooping flesh from coconuts, we got a clean, big shell, we would be happy. For it could be used to serve buttermilk to these people.'
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`In Hedavi branch of Bank Of Maharashtra, the cashier, Mr Jadhav, was a neo-Buddhist. Formerly a Mahar. There was small hotel near the bank, we got our tea from there.'

`Once the hotel-owner came around, bringing us the afternoon tea. He was a Maratha. There were three of us at the bank. I invited the hotel-owner to join us. Jadhav took out four cups, and poured tea. The hotel-owner didn't touch the cup that was offered to him.'

`Later I made a point of asking him -- why didn't you drink the tea? He said -- it might be alright for you, but I won't drink from the cup touched by Mahar.'

(My father was born in 1948. He left his coastal village around 1964, after matriculation. He served in Hedavi, another coastal village, as branch-manager between 1987 and 1990.)