Impact of Poverty on Gender and Caste in Bama’s Karukku

INTRODUCTION

Karukku is an autobiographical work by a Tamil Nadu Roman Catholic woman. Under the pen name Bama, she authors her books. This is an autobiography that emerges because of the injustice she endured because of her faith and caste from a personal crisis in the life of the writers. It takes its type and polemic from the writers who as Dalit and Christian acquire integrity. This autobiography is not traditional, it is not simplistic or chronology-oriented but has various viewpoints, different topics, and different reflections on life events. This book offers us insights into how the Church and the lives of another Dalit Catholics impacted her. Other than the religious existence she finds, she also finds a sense of untouchability through the self-education process. Her re-reading of the scriptures of Christ helps her to promote faith among the other Dalits. She demonstrates the revolutionary facets of Christianity, equal principles, social fairness, and compassion for all. Her life experiences led her to personally believe in the uplifting of the poor. Since she became a nun, she had some expectations that she might realize these goals. Via this journey, she learns how the convent and the Church vary from her viewpoint. This tension is the key theme of Bama‘s Karukku . Karukku focuses primarily on a single subject, caste discrimination in the Catholic Church, and the trajectory of her solitary self-exploration. The other dispute between Bama and her community is that she leaves one community (a religious woman) to pursue another (Dalit woman). The parents of Bama have converted Christians, who in the 18th century converted faith. The key facets of this tale are caste and belief that have created suffering in the lives of the writers. Christianity was deemed a form of liberation for her; it is liberation primarily based on the Dalit. When she was young, she was full of her relatives and neighborhood celebrations and traditions but when she began to go beyond the country, first school and then the convent, she knew rudimentary life.

Bama Faustina is the most respected Tamil-language Dalit fiction novelist. Bama's initial name is Faustina Mary Fathima Rani. The Latin name is Faustina. She was born as Fathima in 1958 in Puthupatti village in the southern Tamilnadu district of Viruthunagar near Madurai. The name Bama was taken from the real name of the poet, Faustina Mary Fathima. Fathima is pronounced in Tamil as Bathima and thus the name of Bama. Her family was transformed in the 18th century to Christianity. Susairaj was her father and Sebasthiamma was her mother. Bama was born in the village of Paraiya. Her father served in Indian Army and her mother was a house wife. Bama is now a teacher at a school in Uthirameroor, a tiny village near Kancheepuram, in Tamilnadu. There are two brothers and three sisters in Bama. She grew up together with fun and struggle. The oldest son is Raj Gauthaman, a Dalit

In 1985, despite the will of her parents and brother, she entered the convent. She had led a simple and straightforward life before she entered the monastery and had longed for that old life.

HER LITERARY WORKS

With the publication of her autobiography Karukku, Bama was noted as a novelist. It first appeared in Tamil in 1992 and then was immediately translated into English (2000). Her other works include Sangati (1994), translated into English, Kisumbukkaran (1996), and Harum, Scarum Saar; Vanman (2003), translated to English with the same title, in 2008. Bama's works in Tamil reflect the appearance of Dalit writings. Bama wrote Karukku (1992), who brought the influence of a tornado to whip the literary universe with its Dalit theme and expression. Karukku, the title of the book, is used by the writer with a symbolic meaning .Karukku means the searing edges of the palmyra leaves ,which, with their serrated edges on both sides, are like double edged swords. It retrospect‘s the childhood of a Dalit Catholic Christian woman and reflects on caste atrocities in her village, on encounters of untouchability at the Catholic convent, and the final separation from the nunnery. When translated, Sangati (1994) still has news on the condition of girls and women in her rural society. It functions like a novel utilizing oral storytelling methodology. The reader is an active user, an alert listener of the stories. A series of short stories, Her Kisumbukkaran (1996) asks several concerns regarding Dalit's life.

The word Dalit ,the synonym of suppression and segregation, has been a part and parcel of Hindu varna system in which Dalit are the another name for Shudra .The varna system has been proved a curse on humanity because, the people divided on the basis of their work, it is the base of casteism and discrimination in India .The past and present of Dalits and their pathetic condition has been a matter of discussion in general and in literature which show the real picture of them as the bounded slaves, indentured labour and life less objects-not as human beings. Bear pains and sufferings, exploitation and humiliation, dignity and identity crisis in the world of tyrant upper caste people, have a little place in history and literature up to early 20th century. The mid and later part of 20th century witness a great progress in Dalit literature. Bama is one of those writers who have faced the affirmation problem personally. Bama‘s Karukku published in the Tamil edition in 1992 and English in 2000. Karukku was not only the first Dalit autobiography but also a particular identity, written by a Christian Dalit woman of its type in Tamil. It details permitted representation. It is a speech of one that bears witness to the voiceless tone. The focus of the story in its subaltern expression which gives voice to experiences experienced by herself and those victims of social and linguistic marginalization. Dalit campaigns overwhelmingly led by men appeared to sideline Dalit women's problems. Dalit women were required to convey their suffering doubled due to bigotry against caste and sex. The consequence was Dalit Feminism's growth. As an exponent of Dalit Feminism, Bama found the right position in Karukku to merge Dalit women's work and pain. While it was published in Tamil in 1992, Karukku received worldwide attention only after it had been translated into English by Lakshmi Holmstrom in 2000. Karukku's English translation has helped Karukku to cross language and regional borders and reach global readers. Karukku means palmyra leaf and Bama sees numerous congruities between her life full of hardships and the karukku saw edge. As Bama states in the book's preface: "The motivating factors that formed the book are those who cut me off like Karukku, and bleed me; unequal societal systems that plummeted me into ignorance and locked me in and suffocated me; my suicidal desire to disrupt them, cast them away, and break them; and when the bonds were torn into pieces, the blood that was then divided; all these taken together‖. (Karraku,5) Karukku contradicts the existing autobiography writing conventions. It escapes denominational mode and prevents a linear narrative. A traditional autobiography is a related story in which the protagonist chronologically describes his episodes. The anecdotes and events in the life of the protagonist usually reflect the path of the writer towards achievement. On the other side, Karukku is an open path and several questions remain unanswered. It's not an "absolute success story" such as a traditional autobiography. It is a revelation of the bitter truth of a Dalit woman's social ills. Karukku illustrates numerous subjects such as faith, leisure, and schooling, etc. Bama offers us a perfect image of the Dalit Christians' injustice not just in the upper caste community but also in the Catholic Church itself. Bama still had an intrinsic desire to work tirelessly to relieve the misery of the poor. To meet her dreams, she becomes a nun. But she soon learns that the Catholic establishments have caste discrimination and hate. The novel deals with the inner search for Bama's self-discovery and the subsequent bravery that causes her to abandon the life of a nun to live the life of a Dalit woman. Before she was in third standard in a school, Bama never heard citizens talk publicly about untouchability. The first time she discovers the pathetic condition of her culture, she is tinged ironically with humor. She comes back from school and sees a street elder with went inside, she chuckled again when she recounted the case to her elder brother. Yet Annan (sister) wasn't joking. He clarified that the elder was bringing the piece from the street because he was untouchable, and the Naickers were the upper caste citizens so that nothing carried by the Parayas was touched. The first seeds of rage and rebellion in Bama were sowed by that event. She was angry to see an influential elder in her faith subjected to such shame. The interrogation of oneself has begun. Bama started to question what this had meant by naming them paraya? Yet they too were humans. Bama continued to search for avenues of lifting herself and her people from this trampled life. Her Annan teaches her the correct path and states that schooling is the best way to reach equity. Through her services as a nun, she entered the convent to support the poor with the main reason. Yet she discovered to her dismay that the convent is not without caste knowledge. The students of the upper caste had more values and respect for the nuns. The nuns in the monastery regularly mocked and harassed Dalit pupils. The children of Dalit performed jobs including washing and cleaning the washing rooms. The religious people thought that the low caste citizens are nothing but the second standard human beings. Amid the tyrannical religion, Bama "died many deaths". The need for introspection is important. She reflects on her approach to Christianity and religion. She knows that faith has since childhood been imposed on Dalit converts. She remembers how mechanically they had to attend the lessons of the Scriptures to learn the Psalms. For all Dalit girls, the Catechism classes and the morning pusai (prayer) were a must. Absence from classes has been seriously discussed. The cane dropped on them with a whip's sharpness. Thus, the children were ironically motivated by terror to preach the Gospel of truth! Even weekly confessions can be learned from the heart: "I thank the Omnipotent Lord. Bless me, because I have sinned. Bless me saami. I've been making my final confession for a week. I cheated four times; five times I was robbed, I didn't listen to my elders, even in the church I was thinking. These and those sins I have lost, Saami, I repent. It's always been the formula. "(128) Religion was formulaic itself. Bama always had confidence in religion amid all these mechanical exercises; she claimed transmitting the word of devotion and brotherhood. Lived as a novice in the monastery, all this illusion utterly broken. She noticed that a sea of division occurred between Christian religion and its practice. The nuns teach only the philosophy of Bible and do not take it practically in effect. The poor and marginalized became linked to Jesus and struggled for justice and fairness. But no one in the convent seems to insist that God is righteous. her mates, while she was a paraichi. Throughout her schooling, Bama found a painful reminder of her caste and her untouchability, everywhere she went. The financial assistance and special tuitions provided to the Harijans by the government were more of an embarrassment than a consolation, particularly as they stressed their caste identification. Bama opines "Among the other students, a sudden rustling; a titter of contempt. I was filled with a sudden rage" (19). Bama finished her undergraduate and B.Ed. despite all odds and wanted to become an instructor. She worked in a convent and noticed that Dalit girls, who learned there and regarded them in disdain, were continually exploited by the nuns employed there. She remembers painfully the nuns reporting on the Dalit kids in a very derogatory way by calling them potatoes. But look at the condition of their return from household skin and bone. Bama was then immediately hit with the thought of being a nun and serving the Dalit girls. She took a dramatic measure and placed her job on the order as an instructor. The Tamils were deemed to be lesser and the Tamil Parayar was the lowest of the lot and retained little respect in Bama's Christian order. The order itself had its doubts about the Harijan women and the Harijan women who were not recognized as potential nuns and thought to have a different order. Only after it was reported that a monastery had questioned citizens, irksome over injustices and falsehood, Bama admitted that there was a great contrast between the basis of the upper cast people and that of the low-class people. It was her deep understanding of the things that makes her says that she cannot live a duplicate existence to play a dual function. Bama's mind is tormented, discovering that there was no bond between the "God of the Convent" and the poor sufferers. Bama wanted to leave the order alienated from her environment but it was a big question for its feasible to play in such way and she strongly decided to quit the command. Therefore, Bama leaves one of the religious groups, as a Dalit woman, to join another. She is out of the religious order and feels a sense of pride and appurtenance to the Dalit woman group because she is economically vulnerable. Hence, Karukku is a pathetic and moving declaration of the suffocation and repression of the trampled and oppressed Dalit life.

The poverty of Paraya is consuming their bowels, the girl children cannot see any value in education, and remain at home, gather firewood, care for the building, care for the infants and do homework. Instead of going to school and playing, the Parayas were locked up in plants. The work is conducted to adhere to matchbox names. They produce firecrackers and use factory chemicals. At seven in

condition has not improved up till now. They have to go for work in the warehouses like the adults. Though the schools are open, they do not go to school. Bama uses words such as 'small crab-like ones,' 'bad stuff' and 'sweet tots' for disadvantaged Paraya group children. Their battle to fill their bellies and poverty stop them from going to school. As soon as the Paraya boys understand a little, they roam to take care of the goats and calves. The little children who walk on the streets, have no garment, rolled about and play the ‗mud and mire‘, and are indistinguishable from the dolls and piglets. But the children from powerful background enjoy their life very well. Bama confirms ‗‗work of the labor, like shrimps, and their children feed well and fattened; wear nice clothing, go to good colleges, stand high and gain more money…. Our culture is split into all who work and sit back and rejoice ". (4) The rich and wealthy have divided many they deem unfit to contact. These unfit masses have been forced one hand and oppressed. They make the poor Parayas function like a computer, and unjustly harass them, never making them progress. The affluent upper castes dominate and smash the Dalits to their advantage. The monastery does not want to look to the needy children of Paraya and instead desires to support the rich children. It also does treat the priests and the nuns who have suffering in one manner and others who have wealth in their pockets in a very different fashion. The monastery nuns balance their attitudes and actions with the intensity and reputation of wealthy families and wealthy children. While the monastery was well donated, the Dalit or the poor would carry some form of "gift" back. If no one carried the wonderful presents that appeared fitting to the life-style of the monastery, no one could notice who and what everyone was. Somebody affluent, with power in the upper castes, certainly had a special value. The religious groups who pretend to help the weak and the vulnerable, through educating their children at the monastic school, are engaged in helping the wealthy. The rich children often disapprove of the Dalit children or poor children. The rich kids say, "We don't want to sit by them, they're dark-skinned. They're bad. They're bad. They are ugly. They are ugly. They're not sporting beautiful clothing "(18-19). The wealthy children dislike bad and horrific wrecking. They withdrew the wretched Dalits from education and in a play or a dance show, the rich kids they do not want to poor‘s outfit. This hatred was deeply imbibed in the veins and behavior of the rich kids who do not like to share anything but envy, greed, guile and cunningness. The poor kids also had a little bit of understanding of their inner drives which created an inhuman difference. It is here by proved that the people from the rich family and upper caste have a specific sense of proud regarding their birth and importance in the biased between those prayers, their lives, and their jobs. Bama also observes that these prayers were on the one hand as though they were rendered as if they were the other force and rank, which can never be defined as a true Christian. Three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience are required. They tell you that these vows release you and encourage you to live lives based on ordinary people. In reality, Bama can't even see signs and pieces of hardship within the monastery. In their spacious cells, the nuns still work. They can just be stuck in safety round and round. The nuns and the priests believe they should respect everybody because they are ‗the daughters of Heaven‘. Yet the citizens about whom they speak were all wealthy people with whom they accepted into their classes. It reveals why priests and nuns only speak to the rich children accepted to kindergarten. They have formed ties with all the rich children. They never allow the weak and miserable Dalits to take part.

Bama was stopped from joining in the celebration of College Day because of a shortage of proper sari. Both her classmates attended the silk saris party and they concealed their finest material. Many of them were well-dressed and adorned and did not encourage her to go to the gathering because she had no proper sari to carry to join the wedding. As Bama admits: "I didn't have a good sari to my name for me. I didn't know what to do. I did not know what to do. I didn't want to borrow somebody or the other sari to wear it. And I couldn't take myself anywhere else that day, nor would they make me. Then I took my mind and went and checked in the bathroom. When I considered my pain, I decided to sob and sob‖ (76).

Even if one may sense Bama 's emphasis is more on caste than on gender, the group of critics is implicitly attracted to its gender issues though, at the same time, applauding women 's potential to outwrite the hegemony of those in control. Female exclusion and marginalization can be illustrated by characters such as Bama, Patti, and Paraya women. During her school days, Bama would work for her household. As soon as the lessons were done, she used to go and pick items like the thorns for the clutches or Palmyra and the cocoon palm stems and fuel fronds along with the new cow dung and burning cakes. She would go to the fields occasionally and gather dried cow dung. Bama would also function in fields such as pulling the dirt and cleaning up the pods and arranging them. If neither of these works was open, she would pick sporadic or thorny twigs left on the ground. To collect the firewood, she had to send the had to get up early in the morning and fulfill all her tasks. She throws light on the Indian traditional thinking regarding the assigned duties to male and female on the basis of their gender. The women are to do all the thankless household duties which the male is denied for.

Bama describes the priests 'and nuns' dominance of the parish. The Church and its actions play an important part in their culture for the Dalits of Tamilnadu whether or not they are Christians. As Bama claims, the church and the convent betrayed her. Different moral and social ceremonies, holidays, and prayers construct the life of a child in the Catholic Church. A child's life becomes spiritual when being in Catholic ways. The priests and nuns of the upper caste have dominated the Dalits by brutally forcing them into blind confidence and obedience. They enjoy a luxurious existence though in the name of God by making the Dalits their own the slaves who are tormented, tortured and oppressed on the name of god and blind faith in religion. They covered the eyes of oppressed people with the glow of false punishment and let them sink in the water of ignorance. The priests of the upper caste and the religious fanatic people instruct the Dalits and the oppressed to shake their arms together and to bow down in full-length meditation on the ground so as never to rise. Though their inner conscious may ask a number of questions ..What sort of piety is this possible? The priests and nuns of the upper caste became gods so that they may take advantage of others. Any 'other' in the name of God are oppressed and marginalized. Not only was upper caste culture oppressing Dalit Christians but also in the Catholic church itself. The priests and nuns of the Upper Castles be fooled the Dalits with Pusai . Bama says that the Dalits were holding as the stone steps some took before increasing themselves. In the name of Heaven, the Pusai, and the Church, the Dalits were made servants. They also witnessed a state of affairs in which the other citizens come into control as they sought to tread over the weak in the interest of helping the poor. The priests of the high caste and the nuns who came to power have never regarded the Dalits as human beings. Yet they have tied religion to their favor and to keep their failures. They repressed, demolished, and shattered the Dalit's sense that the Dalits were also made in God's likeness. They even repressed the Dalits' honor and reverence for themselves. Through educating the Dalits peculiarly and especially, the priests of the upper caste have excluded the Dalits from their faiths. In the name of God and in the name of helping the needy the Dalits are excluded and oppressed by the high- caste priests and nuns. even after death. Wherever you look, wherever you read, wherever you take, caste discrimination stalks us and sends us into a frenzy in every nook and comer. This is why we never find a way to learn well and advance like anyone else. and this is why all that is left of humanity is a horrible way of existence‘‘ (67).

Bama leaves the convent for the sake of the Dalits and against their ill-treatment. She was sheltered at the monastery and enjoyed a happy life. But now she's trapped in the realm with struggles beyond. Bama has to find her job and also food and drink. Bama cannot tolerate the ill-treatment of the priests and nuns of the upper caste. The priests and nuns never let her do that as she attempts to change the plight of the wretched Dalits in the convent and the college. So, she leaves the convent and starts searching for a career. She seems terrified, uncomfortable and weird to go out. To her, it appears monstrously impossible to find a career. She does not have the resources to offer a work bribe. Even she has nobody who can use her power for her sake. She applies for work that was advertised in magazines. She gets an interview in one position to respond to one of the advertisements in a newspaper. In the chat, she addresses several questions and examines them in writing. After everything, she is assured that the role would fetch her 400 rupees a month's wage. But the real reason is that she is a Dalit. Bama says appropriately, "I haven't had the work. Why? Since I am a Dalit. It was a school run and controlled by Nadar "(45). The Nadar is an upper caste in the village of Bama. Today, Nadars are tappers and shopkeepers. Bama isn't getting the work at Nadar School because she's a Dalit, a low-caste woman. The schools run by the upper castes never name the low castes. Because of the reservation policy, the low castes are designated in schools especially by the miserable Dalits. Otherwise, the administration of the upper castes chooses the low caste members. The Nadar management also appoints a woman from Nadar to the college. Dominants or high castes such as the Nadar prefer the best interview form. Post advertising and interviews are a simple formality. The committee chooses an appropriate nominee for the vacancy. Caste has a significant part to perform here. By submitting the management/institution, the representatives of the selection committee choose the applicant who belongs to the higher caste and the management. You pick the caste and not the deserving individual for that message. They manage it all by placing it in the laws and regulations. Nadar calls the Nadars. Naicker is selecting the Naicker. The higher caste prefers the higher caste rather than the low caste. If Dalits were unwilling to agree in the schools of the upper caste and seek to be welcomed into schools

children to the convent school. The Dalits including Bama and her own community had to suffer from dual marginalized. They could not afford the high fee and torture behavior in the convent school. On the other hand, if they got education in catholic school, they were treated as illiterate or ineligible or for the jobs in the society. Consequently, they had to stay unemployed at their home where there was no hope no reputation, no work to do and no desire for doing something humane. Bama as a determined lady, committed for betterment to her community, filled her heart and hand with the ink of revolution and she is successful enough through her writing.

Paray's may not have the best way to live. Money adds to the empowerment, status, and popularity of the community. People who have little capital to spare will still live happily. But the citizens of Paraya still seem to have that cash in their hands, however hard they work. The people of Paraya cannot have a lavish way of life. They ignore the worthy way of existence. The men and women of Paraya never earn adequate money for their jobs. They work intensely night and day. The men and women of Dalit will do hard, underpaid and unpaid work. There is a different earning of men and women for the same work. The men of Paraya have immense strength to work even if they are uncomfortable or having any critical problem because they know very well that they are born to function only. The Parayas do agricultural work such as plowing, compost, drainage, seed sowing, seeding and planting seedlings, spinning, fertilizer-filling the grounds, grain gathering, threshing floors, sowing groundnuts, picking matte coconuts. They also do build work, for example, digging wells, bringing earth, gravel, and stone loads. They pick firewood and have to work with palm leaves or bricks made in kilns. Men and women will live in the village by working hard and endlessly. The Naickers operate for three-quarters of the village country. They function in the area and family of Naicker. The Parayas work as a "bonded worker" of the family Naicker. Only in this manner must they continue to function until the time of death. They can't even 'fill their bellies half' when doing such hard work. The women sold the grain from winnowing on the ground and picked up the spread ones in the Naicker men's shops with considerable difficulties. The shopkeepers of Naicker will measure the grain and take it for other items. Yet the women never understood how these trade sessions were swindled. The women of Paraya were swindled by the Naicker employers as well as the Nadar merchants. In the village, the Dalits work even more painfully through heat and rain. Yet with little but gruel and water, they live their lives in their huts. The worst among the oppressed Dalits are those who work. Although the beneficiaries are the affluent and the lowest of the poor is not to be specified.

Bama‘s Karukku's for the writer as much as he is. Her sex and faith are additional considerations in her context of Dalit marginalization. As a Dalit feminist, she writes about Dalit women's encounters in her society and encourages women to gain freedom. Her sex complicates her Dalit identification, as her Dalit features distort her status as a woman and feminist. Karukku is an advanced work that discusses multiple dimensions of the persecution of the Dalits, including in and through the Church of the Paraiyars in Tamil Nadu. A significant argument regarding Dalit's migration to other faiths is that they typically turn into a caste centered in a certain area as a whole society. Therefore, their status as a caste is sadly transferred into the modern faith. Unfortunately, conversions from upper castes tend to be translating their caste perceptions into their current religious identities. Caste traditions and biases are also found in all Indian faiths. The Dalits do not seem to be addressed by any faith or by legitimate constitutional action. Indeed, for a while, after the book was released, Bama's own culture was outraged. After its release, Karukku generated quite a buzz in Tamil literary circles, while marking a new age in Dalit Tamil society in projecting the voices of voiceless citizens to be heard in the outer arena. Bama, therefore, used the Tamil people's local dialect and not the formalized variant that is easy to understand.

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Research Scholar, CCSU, Meerut