26 him and he had seen me in school, or his collector said. So they had to hand me
over too” 31. Like what Balram Halwai thought before, that good news goes to bad. Balram Halwai is being promised a scholarship, but what actually happen is
that he is out of school and works in a tea shop with his brother, Kishan. Hence, although Balram was praised, given a book, and promised a
scholarship by school inspector, he has to leave his school. Balram’s family lends some money from the Stork, which makes Balram and all the members of the
family working for the Stork. As Lamb said “ The peasants had no desire to have their children educated. Village chil dren were needed to tend cattle and do other
work in the fields. If they spent a year or two in school, they later forgot what they have learned because they had no occasion to use it” 180. What Lamb said also
happens to Balram. Balram has to leave schoo l for working, to pay the loan. Balram does not have any occasion to use his school learning because he has to
pay his family’s loan.
B. Caste Discrimination in Occupation
After Balram Halwai’s father dies, Balram moves to Dhanbad with his brother, Kishan. Kishan moves to Dhanbad to find a job at the tea shop as the
granny said. However, Balram tries not to find a job at the tea shop because Dhanbad is a Light for Balram.
Go to a pub or bar in Bangalore with your ears open and it’s the same thing you hear: can’t get enough call-centre workers, can’t get enough
software engineers, can’t get enough sales managers. There are twenty, twenty-five pages of job advertisements in the newspaper every week.
Things are different in the Darkness. There, every morning, t ens of thousands of young men sit in the tea shops, reading the newspaper, or lie
27 on a charpoy humming tone, or sit in their rooms talking to a photo of film
actress. They have no job to do today. They know they won’t get any job today. They’ve given up th e fight 45-46.
Balram Halwai knows exactly that if he stays in his hometown, then he will not get an opportunity to make his life better. Therefore, he moves to
Dhanbad, to find a better job, trying to make his life better than in the Darkness. Balram Halwai starts to think what kind of job that he would get to make a better
life in Dhanbad. He stops in a tea shop and overhears a conversation that changes his life.
“You know, sometimes I think I did the wrong thing in life, becoming a miner.”
“Then? What else can people like you and me become? Politicians?” “Everyone’s getting a car these days —and do you know how much they
pay their drivers? One thousand seven hundred rupees a month” 44.
After overhearing the conversation, Balram Halwai becomes aware of the job needed in Dhanbad. After that, he tries to learn how to drive a car. That is not easy
to find someone who would like to teach Balram driving a car for free. At last, Balram should expand his money to learn how to drive a car.
We went into the house where the taxi drivers lived. An old man in a brown uniform, which was like an ancient army outfit, was smoking a
hookah that was warmed up by a bowl of live coals. Kishan explained the situation to him.
The old driver asked, “What caste are you?” 47 .
As Lamb said “Theoretically, at least, each caste in India has a hereditary occupation. There are castes of washer men, gardeners, goldsmiths,
moneylenders, potters, oil -pressers, mat-makers, leatherworkers, water -bearers, carpenters, accountants, gene alogists, barbers, tailors -the list is almost endless”
141. In India, caste has a hereditary occupation. Therefore Balram is asked by
28 the old driver about his caste. Balram is asked about his caste when he wants to
learn driving a car. The old driver ask s him straight from what caste he comes from.
“Halwai” “Sweet-makers,” the old driver said, shaking his head. “That’s what you
people do. You make sweets. How can you learn to drive?” He pointed his hookah at the live coals. “That’s like getting coals to m ake ice for you.
Mastering a car”—he moved his stick of an invisible gearbox —“it’s like taming a wild stallion—only a boy from the warrior castes can manage
that. You need to have aggression in your blood. Muslims, Rajputs, Shiks—they’re fighters, they can become drivers. You think sweet -makers
can last long in fourth gear?” 47.
The old driver knows that Halwai is a sweet -maker caste. Hutton describes Halwai as “a caste of confectioners in northern India generally” 282. Balram answers
that he is a Halwai. It is true that he is a destined as a sweet -maker since he is a Halwai. Halwai is not a warrior caste and the old driver disbelieves that Balram
can do such driver job since he is only a sweet -maker. At last, the old driver agrees to teach him how to d rive a car. “Coal was taught to make ice, starting the
next morning at six. Three hundred rupees, plus a bonus, will do that. We practice in a taxi. Each time I made a mistake with the gears, he slapped me on the skull.
“Why don’t you stick to sweets and t ea?” 47. Balram learns how to drive a car with the old driver. However, the old driver keeps wondering why Balram wants
to drive a car than make sweets or tea as what he should do. After Balram Halwai finishes the car driving training, he tries to find a job
as a private driver. He knocks on door by door to get a job. Until he arrives to a house in which he sees one of his landlord in the Darkness. “Swoosh —As soon
as the gate was open, I dived straight at the Stork’s feet” 51. Balram knows
29 exactly that in order to get a job from the landlord the Stork, he should do that
since Balram comes from lower caste and he needs landlord’s help to get a job there.
Balram tells the Stork that he comes from the Darkness, a place in which the Stork becomes a landlord. Balram tells the Stork that he wants to work with
the Stork as a driver as he can drive a car. After having a spin of driving a car test, the Stork asks him some questions.
“Not bad,” the old man said as he got out of the car. “Fellow is cautious and good. What’s your last name again?”
“Halwai” “Halwai…” He turned to the small dark man. “What caste is that, top or
bottom?” And I knew that my future depended on the answer to this question 53.
Balram knows that his caste is low; a sweet -maker does not deserve to have a job like driver, only those from warrior caste may do that. Balram realizes that the
answer to the Stork’s question is very important that it might change his life for better or worse. Balram tries to think over for the answer.
See: Halwai, my name, means “sweet -maker.” That’s my caste—my destiny. Everyone in the Darkness who hears that
name knows all about me at once. That’s why Kishan and I kept getting a job at sweetshops wherever we went. The owner thought, Ah, they’re
Halwais, making sweets and tea is in their blood
53. Balram understands that as a Halwai, he is destined to become a sweet -maker.
Therefore, Balram and Kishan always get a job at sweetshops wherever they go. According to Harris and Johnson, each caste and sub cas te has a hereditary
occupation that guarantees its members basic subsistence and job security. Furthermore, according to Hindu scripture, an individual’s varna is determined by
30 a descent rule; that is, it corresponds to the varna of one’s parents and is
unalterable during one’s lifetime 201. Halwai is a caste of sweet maker or confectioners. Halwai guarantees its members basic subsistence and job security
as sweet-maker as what happens to Balram and Kishan. Balram Halwai’s father is not a sweet -maker, however. Balram Halwai’s
father is a rickshaw-puller. He wonders why his father does not work as a sweet maker but as a rickshaw-puller.
But if we were Halwais, then why was my father not making sweets but pulling a rickshaw? Why did I grow up breaking coals and wiping tables,
instead of eating gulab jamuns and sweet pastries when and where I chose to? Why was I lean and dark cunning, not fat and creamy -skinned and
smiling, like a boy raised on sweets would be? 53.
Lamb described “The hereditary caste occu pation is not necessarily followed by all the members of the caste or even by the majority of the members. Various
present-day forces tend to undermine the old caste occupational patterns” 141. As Lamb said that the hereditary caste occupation is not nec essarily followed by
all the members of the caste. It happens to Balram Halwai’s father who is a Halwai, destined to become a sweet -maker, but does not work as sweet -maker.
My father must have been a real Halwai, a sweet -maker, but when he inherited the shop, a member of some other caste must have stolen it from
him with the help of the police. My father had not had the belly to fight back. That’s why he had fallen all the way to the mud, to the level of a
rickshaw-puller. That’s why I was cheated of my de stiny to be fat, and creamy-skinned, and smiling 54.
Balram Halwai’s father is supposed to inherit the shop but there must be some people from other caste who steal it with the help of a police. That is the reason
why Balram Halwai’s father does not bec ome a sweet-maker as his destiny. It also
31 explains why Balram is not fat, creamy -skinned and smiling as what he should be
if his father was a sweet-maker. According to Prentice and Miller who described the most troubling for the
social identity perspective on status and power that “First, although increased status may in fact lead to enhanced in -group favouritism, it appears that power is
what makes discrimination possible in the first place” 111. Balram Halwai’s father loses the tea shop because some oth er castes use the power using the help of
police. In real condition, Balram Halwai’s father does not have anything to support him keeping the tea shop. Balram Halwai’s father does not have the
power to do it. Balram does not give the answer yet until the S tork asks him for the
second time. “Are you from a top caste or bottom caste, boy?” 54. Balram realizes that the Stork has been waiting for his answer that he does not find. “I
didn’t know what he wanted to say, so I flipped both answers —I could probably have made a good case either way —and then said, “Bottom, sir.” 54. Finally
Balram replies the Stork’s question. Balram says that his caste, Halwai, is a bottom caste.
C. Caste Discrimination in Freedom
