In class today we were paired in groups of two to talk to each other and get to know how each of us were introduced to caste. now this pair would keep changing after a few mins and would be paired again with another person so that we get to know different stories for the same subject. i was surprised that people did have different things to tell as to how and at what age they were aware of a thing called caste.
out of the three people i was paired with, the first person had the same experience as me where, in school we were asked to fill the school diary with our personal information and it had a block for caste and were just told to right our caste told by our parents. the second person i talked to was introduced to caste when he was in 7th grade and it was when one of his relatives had married someone other than belonging to caste and his parents had warned about not doing such things in the future. the last person i talked had a very interesting story about how he was introduced to caste. when he was a young kid, in his village he became friends with a dalit boy and they became very good friends and one day his uncle saw him hanging out with this dalit boy. when he reached home he was told not to be friends with the dalit boy anymore because according to them it was kind of an insult to their caste and was not allowed to be friends with him and that is when he was aware of caste and how it discriminated people. he did tell that he still continued to be friends with the boy without his family’s knowledge
Hopeless wanderer 