Marrying for love – II

Priya* works as domestic help. She washes vessels and clothes, sweeps and swabs floors, chops vegetables and performs other housekeeping chores daily in three houses in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. In conversation, she shares her experience of marrying outside caste. Translated excerpts from an interview dated 15.07.2011. Read the first part here

We moved to the area next to one my parents were in. They would look at me but they wouldn’t talk. After I became pregnant, a year later, my father would come and talk to me. My father-in-law wouldn’t accept us. ‘They filed a complaint in the police station,’ he said, about my parents, and refused to let us into the house. Then I said, ‘I had a reason to write and give that I don’t want my parents, if I hadn’t given in writing, they would have beaten you up. Now when my parents come of their own accord and talk to me, I can’t refuse them. When I said this, he asked ‘Don’t you want your husband?’ Both of them started fighting. I said, ‘I won’t visit them if you don’t want me to but I definitely will talk to my parents.’ After my oldest son was born, they started visiting and talking. My mother-in-law would also talk a little. After a year, these problems were solved.

People appreciated that I had taken a stand at this young age. ‘Others would have been afraid and given up their love,’ people told me and started encouraging me. Friends were good to me. Only my parents’ relatives refused to accept me. They would stand on the road and talk to me but they won’t come into the house, they won’t eat, they won’t even drink water because we were SC. When we went to their house, they would take care of us. But they would never eat in our house.

My mother’s friend’s daughter was also my friend. She fell in love and ran away with her lover. They came and asked me, ‘Where is Manjula? She was your friend. Did she tell you anything?’ I hadn’t even known that she was in love. She had loved within her Parayar  caste only but they didn’t accept it. They said, ‘Why should she choose that boy?’ She refused to come home and married that boy. Her in-laws looked after her well. She started going to work and she is happy now.
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Please ask all parents to let their children marry whoever they want. Please write that very strongly. If they give their consent, there will be no problems. Most of the problems that happen in love marriages are because the parents don’t consent. Tell parents to stop clinging to caste.

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Now my oldest son is studying for his degree by correspondence. He is also a photographer in a studio. He is of marriagable age and he is also in love. We know about it. We told him about all the difficulties we faced. We told him to marry the girl we find.

After we married, there was opposition on both sides. My father-in-law chased us away. ‘Let me see how you will survive, I cannot give you food,’ he said. They caused lot of difficulties. My son says, ‘What would you have known at 15? I am 22. I can take my decisions. That girl is also 19.’ I told him, they would face difficulties. The girl is Servar caste (a Thevar sub-caste), we are SC. We cannot face any problems if they should arise. I told the girl this also. She said, ‘I can face any problems that come. I know you are SC. Its not like I  didn’t know when we were in love.’

I have told my children these things, they should know the problems I faced. The other three are in school.

If people should fall in love, they should have parental consent. Running away is difficult. You will only have the clothes on your back. My younger mother-in-law and I were pregnant at the same time. They would not make food in the morning. I would have to starve till evening. I was struggling for a few years. They did not feel that I had come away from home, that they should look after me. They felt that they should give food only when we give money. My husband was plying a rickshaw then. I was 15, working in a school as an aayah.
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Earlier work used to be divided by caste – people who wash clothes have to come only by the back door. They could not drink water in the same tumbler, employers would ask them to drink water from the tap. Now it’s not like that – people of all castes – Konar, Servar, Nadar, – all come for housework. Employers are also better now. In some places, work is still divided by caste. In the 15-20 years since I started doing housework, people have also started treating us as human beings.
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The area I lived – Ponnaandi Veethi – was an SC street only. It was supposed to be for the people who burned corpses. There was also a ‘Nadar Compound’ on the same street – the really poor people lived there, mostly SC people like Sakkiliar, Parayar, Kuravar, also Nadar and Muslim were all there – but it was called Nadar Compound only.

When we look for houses for rent, they ask for caste. SC people could only ask SC houseowners. Things are changing now. In the house I am in now, the owner is Kallar. Recently when we went house hunting, I told the house-owner that I was Nadar. That house-owner is Konar. He said ok. He knew my husband, knew he was SC. AFTER we came and set up house there, he made it a caste issue. We had to vacate the house. The older people are like that, middle-aged people like us don’t bother much. The older people cling to caste. My relatives still won’t take food from us.

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*Name changed on request