My Secret

“What religion do you follow?” asked the curious twelve year old.
“I’m a Christian” I answered, “A Roman Catholic.”
She became bolder, “Are you a Goan or an Anglo-Indian?”
“Damn!” I thought,

“All my life I’ve had to answer this question. Any moment now and she might get to know the truth. Don’t worry Rashmi; you’ll get through this round of firing too.”
“No, I’m not an Anglo-Indian or a Goan,” I said stiffly, “ I’m just a normal Christian.”

And they had to be satisfied with that. A stray thought entered my mind and worried me slightly. “How long will you keep hiding the truth? Or are you hiding from the truth?” I quickly dismissed it. My secret was still safe. I breathed a sigh of relief…

It was not a very big secret. Many people knew it. Once in a while someone who didn’t know would discover the truth. I have seen the faces change. I have noticed the warmth in their behavior disappear. So I never told anybody who I really was.

By the time I turned 15, nobody asked, because everyone knew. But they often forgot.

In front of me, people would say, “Oh Pramila flunked 5 papers this term, she’s really dumb.” Another voice would explain, “ She’s an Adivasi.” And that word said it all. I would feel like speaking up for Pramila. I never did. I walked away.

My secret was that I am an “adivasi” too.

I grew up with people who believed that “adivasis” (adi: primitive; vasi: people) or tribals were the “lower classes”. Everybody around me strongly believed that tribals were slow, secondary and stupid so much so that I believed them too. After all there was no one to challenge that fact!
At home I was told time and time again, “Rashmi you are an adivasi. You will never have the brains or the cunning ways of the others. People will always try to pull you down.” At school I saw almost all of the few tribals who were there fall behind. Ma often said, “Tribals always fail, you don’t fail my child!” Irritated with all this, I often thought of myself as a non-tribal and went on to do everything that a tribal could supposedly not do. I excelled inside the classroom and outside it too. I sang, acted in plays, spoke at important occasions and represented my school in many events.

But I had yet to come to terms with myself.

In the spring of 2002, when I was cleaning out papa’s cupboard, I came across a bundle of letters written by Grandpa to papa, when he was away at college.

Since I lived in the city far away from my village, which I visited just twice a year (during Christmas and Easter), I hardly ever got the chance to interact much with my own people. With my own people, I would be an outsider because I was not like them at all and when I would be back home with my city friends, I would be tribal again.

Grandpa had written about the family history of his previous three generations. He had written about how his grandfather had been poisoned to death becasue he converted to Christianity and how his mother had lost six of her eleven children in infancy. Decades after the incidents had taken place, I was crying. I began to get to know my forefathers intimately. I realized that I had inherited their will power, their spirit of good will and their willingness to work hard. The writer of these letters had died 10 years back, but his 20-year-old letters still worked their charm. He had once again reached out to another lost child. That child had finally found somebody who could be her role model. And like her role model she wanted to make a difference. She wanted to be that one tribal, because of whom no one would look down on tribals again.

I learnt a lot from the letters. And I was proud… proud of my forefathers-my people, for the first time. Don’t get me wrong; I have always loved my people and enjoyed our colorful culture. I loved my land too. The gray hills, the vast stretches of barren paddy fields, the boiled rice drying in the sun on the road, the Sal trees, the red tiled roofs precariously balanced on the mud walls…I loved them all. I loved doing the tribal dances wearing the traditional white and red sari, singing the Oraon songs, playing the Nagara and the Mandar (both are tribal percussion instruments), and taking part in the several festivals. But before reading the letter, I had never been proud of them.

That summer, my friends had come over to work on a school project. A few of my friends went into the kitchen to get some snacks. One of the non-tribals, Deepika who still hadn’t got any food said “Hey! pass the chips this side, I am not an untouchable tribal.” Very kindly but firmly I told her, “I’m a tribal and here, at my home, you wont be denied food because you are a tribal.!”

I had finally accepted the truth- not only to my world but more importantly to myself.