Off Caste

On the same day that I met the one-eyed man, coming home along the same bus route, two men were speaking about dogs and children. One spoke of his recently diseased English Cocker Spaniel (or some such breed) which he loved dearly for over 15 years. He said his own kids had to share a bedroom, while his dog got a room all his own with a king size bed no less, and that he even had more pictures of his dog than his children. “That is how much I loved that dog”. One wonders if it’s true. But I really wonder if he had any idea how sad that sounded. The man was very large, and it was clear, as is often the case with people on a bus, of limited education.

A bit later a young lad boarded. As young people are wont to do, he was wearing headphones and listening to music. The large man asked him about his music player. “Oh, I have over a thousand songs on here. But I have room for many more. I have… like… a 100 gigabytes of free space.” The big man says he “has no idea about any of that”. The younger continued, “Well let me put it his way, each song takes up 3 to 4 megabytes”. The young man did not really comprehend the extent of the older man’s ignorance on the mater. Drawing even a starker contrast, a very rugged-looking black man who had been sitting near them with a collection of mops and a bucket of water, chimed in to explain how 5 movies could be put on one CD, or was it one movie on 5 CDs. He wasn’t sure which. They went on this way for a few minutes.

But then the young man started talking about his love of music. His genre of choice was Metal. His favorite band was Queensriech. He knew all about this music, and, something I thought was interesting, he pointed out that all this music existed before he was born. He went on to speak about how he gets the music for free off the Internet and how this and that singer could hit such high octaves, and so forth. He was quite knowledgeble.

At first, it seemed like just another mundane low class conversation. I thought about how people define themselves –how the ego makes itself feel special by valuing such simple things, how much they knew, how much they have, how fast, How much they own, how much they can do, how much music they know. I suspect we all do it. In fact, that day I had taken a basic motor skill test. I had to keep a triangle between two lines using a very touchy joystick. The test giver told me I gotten better scores than anyone she had seen. Such a small thing this, and yet my ego was stroked. Later in the evening I would tell a friend about it and she too proved proud of me. So funny.

Then the large man began to put forth his own favorites, Pink Floyd, Iran Maiden and Black Sabbath. His favorite song, he said, “is War Pigs”. At that point a shift occurred in me. Where before I had separated myself from these individuals for there simpleton ways, now suddenly I shared with them a common Reality. The lyrics of that song, I had long ago appreciated, started to come back to me.

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses

Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of deaths construction

In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning

Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds, oh lord yeah!

This simple song –this classic 70’s anti-war anthem, became a common ground that changed my whole reflection on the day. I saw these people as the salt of the earth, even less perhaps –it’s dust. And there was no doubt that their overall taste in music reflected it. But it was still music. Despite their status, in it they found something much greater than themselves –the chords, the harmonies, the rhythms and lyrics. The appreciation might not be deep or sophisticated, but they could appreciate it. No matter how separated we were by class or education, we still had something lofty in common.

So then I had to wonder, was there really such a difference between myself and these other people? In the measure against the full potential of mind and ultimate understanding I doubt I bat much more than a tick or two above him on a vastly larger scale. I know there are brilliant people in the world, I have met some of them, and they might just as easily look down on me for my simpleton understandings in comparison to theirs. But they too are just another small tick away from me on this larger scale. Those ticks can seem like such great gulfs in our day to day lives, especially on the bottom rungs. But truth be told, we have far more in common than we will ever have in differences.

In some sense I suppose I am privileged. I have had the fortunate of straddling two worlds, to experience both sides of economic reality in America, the poor and the wealthy, the well-educated and the uneducated. I am able to compare and contrast. See how the circumstances of life generally effect the resulting living. Hindu culture is well know for is caste system. People are relegated from birth to specific classes, from the lowest untouchable to the highest royal. They have institutionalized something that generally occurs naturally due to the situation of one’s parents. It is something that should remain natural, and if anything is to be institutionalized it should be to undo these divisions as much as possible. In the States, birth and rearing still sets a person into a particular class, but they are free to move up or down as they are able. Unfortunately, we as a polis do not go very far out of our way to see the lots of our fellow human-beings improve. It is hard for those stuck on the bottom rungs to move up. Much harder than I think most people realize. And it is not a particularly friendly place. A place ferom which few listen or care. As a friend of mine once termed it, it is a place of “quiet desperation”. But as I learned today, it is not a place utterly lacking in character, culture or good intent. In general, it is not the people that are lacking, it the system in which they find themseleves.

Tags: man