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1973 Coimbatore
As part of my training as Assistant Collector, I had to do a socio-economic study
of a village. This part of the training is most important, specially to
the officers who come from outside the state. It helps you to understand the people, their
culture, their customs, norms and mores. It also helps you to understand the social
stratification, social distance and social institutions.
In the good old days, officers used to stay in
the village during the course of the study. Nowadays, it is possible to commute to the
villages daily, so staying in the village is not insisted upon. Due to my
social-anthropological background, I was very keen to stay in the village while carrying
on my study.
The village of Vedapatti situated at the
outskirt of Coimbatore was allotted for my study. Perhaps, it was also kept in mind that I
should be able to commute daily, with ease to Vedapatti.
On the due date the village headman, Mr.
Shivaraman was called to the Collectorate and I was duly handed over into his care. He was
an elderly, dignified and pious brahmin who had decided to keep a stern eye on me, the
same as he was keeping on the village.
On my very first day in the village he made it
very clear that he was incharge and within the radius of the village, I would have to obey
him. I requested him to rent an accommodation for me for a month as I would be staying in
the village for the duration of the study.
He put his foot down and said that was
impossible, that the village was not a good place for me, that there was not a single
house in the village fit enough for me to live in, that there was not a single family he
would trust me with, and so on.
However, I was also very adamant and insisted
that I could not make a complete study if I did not observe the behavior of the people in
the mornings and the evenings and did not watch the fairs and festivals; feasts ceremonies
and the rituals which took place in the mornings and the evenings.
We argued with each other for hours. Finally
he relented and said that if at all I wanted to stay in the village, I would have to stay
in his house, take it or leave it. He was a real old timer who could dictate terms to an
Assistant Collector on training. Since he gave me no other alternative I accepted it.
I stayed for a full month in his house, where
he lived with his teenager daughter Padma. Padma was a charming young woman waiting to be
given away in marriage. The search for a groom was on. She was my window into the life of
a young Tamil woman. Everyday she cooked a tasty breakfast and the vegetarian meals for
us. Through her, I had my first taste of a proper four course Tamil meal starting with the
dal and ghee rice, followed by sambar with rice, rasam with rice and butter-milk with rice
and interspersed with all kinds of Kudambus, Poriyals, Appalams, Vattals, and Pickles.
Padma and me shared a room and slept on the mat floor, where she often spoke of the past
and her deadmother and her uncertain future after her marriage
. For a month, I roamed around the
village along with the village headman. We attended a Naidu wedding and an ear-boring
ceremony for a Gownder kid, ate Nongu Padams, visited toddy and arrack shops (indigenously
made liquor), went for collecting taxes and went to see the cotton fields and dairy farms.
He did not leave me alone even for a moment.
He would shadow me as if I was a small girl who would get lost or kidnapped. He would be
unhappy when I kept talking to every riff-raff in the village. He would be unhappy when I
invited the members of the so called lower castes to his house for a conversation. He
would be unhappy when I attended the sacrificial ceremonies to the village Gods at the
outskirts of the village (where hens and goats were sacrificed) and when I attended the
funerals and saw drunken men beating the drums and dancing. Yet he followed me every
where, while giving me all the freedom to learn.
In the evenings, we sat on his desk and went
through the village land records and the village revenue records and the registers of
births, deaths and marriages. He also dispensed simple justice in the villages and issued
certificates like the nativity certificate and the income certificate. He solved minor
disputes and cases of indiscipline. He impounded erring cows and goats. He treated his
village and its institutions with care and respect. If a tree was found to be cut he would
rush to catch the culprit. He would ensure that the water sources of the village were
protected.
He was an honest and upright man. He had his own likes and
dislikes and was a traditionalist but he was just and fair and cared for the overall well
being of the village. During the month, I developed a deep affection for the old man and
his daughter. Though he is no more, I have had lasting relationship with Padma, who is
leading a contented life married to a minor government functionary
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