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The Sarki
Family and the Young Groom
by Berit
Madsen
 "The
young generation of today do not respect us old people. They do whatever
they want”, Hari Bhul says with a big laugh.
Hari Bhul is
65 years old. He is a tiny man with grey hair and only one tooth left in
his mouth. When he talks he pushes the tooth forth and back with his
tongue “One day it will fall out – but what to do?”, Hari says with
another laugh.
Hari is the
head of his household. His household consists of two wives, five sons, one
daughter and four daughter-in-laws. He married his first wife, Jhankari
Bhul, when he was only 15 years old. As Hari didn’t get along with his
mother-in-law he decided to take a second wife as well. The following year
he brought Birma Bhul, the second wife, to his household. The two wives
live in different parts of the family house. The second wife live in the
kitchen area, and the first wife in a room above the
kitchen.
The family
belongs to the bhul caste. The bhul is a subgroup of the sarki caste – the
shoemakers. The traditional work of the bhul caste is to make leather
work, in particular leather reins. The reins are used for leading the oxes
in ploughing and harvesting time. When a cow or an ox in the village dies,
the sarki and bhul are called upon to come and remove the carcass. No
other caste want to touch the dead animal.
Hari’s
household has four buffaloes, one cow, two oxen and three goat. Hari is
especially fond of the oxen and spend much time patting them and taking
them to the water hole to cool down in the muddy water. The family still
carry out the traditional bhul leather work, but nowadays they mainly make
their living by agriculture work. They owe some land of their own where
they grow wheat, mustard and millet. But most of their work is carried out
on the upper castes’ fields. They manure the land and harvest the
crops.
The young
bridegroom
Hari’s second
youngest son, Guje Bhul, is 17 years old. When he was 13 years old he went
to Punjab in India to work as a construction worker. After four years of
work he had saved 12.000 rupees (approx. 160 US$), which he handed over to
his father.
 “Three
months ago I went to Punjab to get my son to come back to the village and
get married”, Hari says. If he had married in India, we could not be sure
that the girl was from our bhul caste. Therefore, it was necessary to
bring him back”.
Guje returned
to Pachnali with his father and the marriage was arranged. The bride,
Kallu Bhul, was found in a neighbouring village some 3-4 hours of walk
from Pachnali. The marriage was a costly affair for the family. According
to traditional marriage practices, the groom’s family provide a special
set of ornaments for the bride: a pair of heavy silver bracelets
(“chudi”), a golden nose ring (“bulankhi”) and nose ornament (“phuli”), a
pair of flower shaped earrings in gold with a red semi-precious stone
(“top”), and a necklace made of glass and golden beads (“naugedi”). A
sunar – a goldsmith – came to the village and for two weeks he worked at a
small outdoor fireplace to make the ornaments for Hari.
The
wedding day
 At
the day of the wedding Hari is busy making plates out of big round leaves
from the tall sal trees. As part of the marriage ritual the groom’s family
serves dal bhat (rice with lentil soup) for their male relatives. While
Hari sews the leaf plates with tiny wood sticks, the women are busy inside
the dark kitchen crushing chillies and big salt lumps in a stone grinding
mill to spice the lintel soup. Many kilos of rice are put to simmer in big
round brass pots at the open fireplace.
The relatives
begin to arrive. One by one they enter the kitchen and sit down on the
floor, waiting for the meal to be served. After finishing the meal it is
time for the tika-giving. Members of Hari’s household walk around with the
red tika powder in a folded leaf. They put a dot of tika on the forehead
of all the bhul relatives in order to make good fortune for the whole
family.
 Hari
himself has disappeared. He desperately tries to locate a pair of socks
that he bought some weeks ago for the groom to wear on this special
occasion. He calls for his wives and sons to come and help him. They all
look for the socks – without finding them. “Take off your socks and give
them to me”, the young groom shouts to his older brother. The brother
hesitates – it is his only pair of socks. After some persuasion Guje
succeeds in getting his brother to lend him the socks and the procession
to the brides village can begin. Damai drummers lead the procession and
play on half moon shaped drums with wooden sticks. After five hours of
walk the procession arrives in the bride’s village. Here the actual
marriage ceremony takes place. The following evening the procession
returns to Pachnali with the young and very shy new bride.
Return to
India
 “All
in all the marriage expenses ran up to 80.000 rupees (approx. 1080 US$)”,
Hari tells. But in three days time, my son will go back to India to work
for another 2-4 years. Hopefully he can save up enough money for us to pay
back the loans we took for the wedding”.
When Guje
returns to Punjab, the new bride will stay with Hari’s household. “We
don’t allow him to take her to India”, Hari says. “She has to stay in my
household, fetch water, fetch leaves for the cattle and look after us old
people. But my son wants her to go with him – and if the earnings is good,
he might bring her one day. But that will be against my will”.
 This
time Guje will work as a private driver for a wealthy family in Punjab.
For that job he receives 2000 rupees (approx. 160 US$) a month beside
getting free lodging and food. He knows that his father wants him to
return to the village when he has saved up enough money, but he is not too
sure if he wants that. “In India we get good food and live in good houses.
Here there is nothing, only these dry hills and all the hard work”. Guje
says. “But if my father do not allow me to bring my wife to Punjab, I will
have to return one day”.
We will
never marry other castes
“When we need
to find brides for our sons, we walk from village to village and ask
people from our bhul caste if they have some unmarried daughters”, Hari
says. “And from time to time bhuls from the neighbouring villages also
come to our village to get our daughters. We will never marry to other
castes – NEVER! That’s our culture – it was like that in our grandparents
time, in our parents time, in our time, in my sons time – and so it will
be in my grandchildren’s time as well!”.
 Hari
is not interested to change that part of the caste system. “Even if a
person from the upper castes came to my house to ask for my daughter, I
would refuse the marriage. We stick to our caste – that’s the way I want
it to be”.
But Hari
knows that the young generation has a mind on their own. “I tell them to
listen to us old people. Like you people, you have come to our village to
learn about our life, our culture – and like that the young generation
should sit down and listen to us. But they are too busy making their own
lives. So maybe there will be some changes – one day”.
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