“At the beginning of January villagers heard that food was being given out in the district capital, about twenty miles away. At first no one wanted to go.
“We were peasants, not beggars,” Hasari Pal was later say. “But for the sake of the women and children we had to resign ourselves to accepting charity.”
Later the government officials went through the villages announcing a relief operation called “Work for Food.” Work sites were opened up in the area to
deepen the canals, mend the roads, increase the size of the water reservoirs, raise the dikes, clear the undergrowth, and dig holes for trees to be planted.
“We were given two pounds of rice for each day worked, a handout that was supposed to feed an entire family, and all country the silos were full of grain.”
p.19-20 Karma motivates them to work hard because work is one of good deeds
which can make them gain good karma in their future life. They gain it in future life because Hindus believe in the law of reincarnation. The law of karma automatically
postulates the law of reincarnation as a necessity, because human being must pay the consequences of his action Lemaitre, 1959: 74. Hindus think that in this present
life, they cannot change their destiny as poor people. Hence, they have to do many good deeds in order to get good karma in the future life.
4.2.2. The Influence of Karma on Custom
In the law of karma, it is mentioned that the differences of socio- economic status among people happen because karma determines his own fate in this
life and future. In moral universe, everything that happens to a person is earned, nothing is accidental. Someone determines his own fate in this life and future
Reddit, 1995: 474. Hindus believe they cannot change their destiny. For example, if in this life someone is poor, this poverty is his destiny. It cannot be changed. For
these reasons, poor people like Hasari and the family always pay attention to their performances, because what they have done in the present life will determine his
future life. Here, Lapierre writes about karma:
“For Hindus, misfortune was the result of the burden of acts buried out in previous life; this karma must be accepted in order that one might be reborn
under more auspicious air.” p.92 Getting good karma in the future life is the aim of every poor person in India.
Especially because reaching Brahman, the main purpose of Hindu people, is not easy. The Bhagavad Gita as cited in The World Book Encyclopedia, 1971: 225
describes three ways of reaching Brahman: 1.
The way of works, or action and the performance of good deeds. 2.
The way of thought, or philosophy and meditation. 3.
The way of faith and devotion to one God. While K.M. Sen also explains 1984: 19 that Hindu documents emphasize three
main ways of reaching God or Brahman; the first is jnana knowledge in which people have to learn Veda and the philosophies, the second is karma actions in
which people have to do their dharma or duty in order to reach Brahman, and the third is bhakti devotion in which for reaching Brahman Hindu people have to do the
ritual obligation. According to Sen 1984: 19 the majority of the economically poor Hindus approach God through traditional simple method using the ways of devotion
bhakti and of performances karma rather than the path of pure knowledge jnana. Generally poor people do not have much hope for reaching Brahman; they
only hope to reach better life in the future life by gaining good karma. Getting moksha
is far from their reaching. This statement below is Prodip Pal thinking that he has not completed his duties in universe so that he cannot reach Brahman:
““Twilight is near,” the old man kept telling himself, “but the sun still glows red. Our cakra, the wheel of our destiny, has not yet completed its turn.”
“p.12
Because of those three ways of reaching Brahman, the poor Hindu people never forget to worship their gods. Hindu people always have small temples and gods
pictures for worshiping. Even when they lack of food, they are still willing to leave a little rice for offering to gods and goddesses. Hasari is also willing to give a few
handfuls of rice to be offered to gods, although his family is lack of food. Here is the statement:
“Hasari already know the answer.” If we rationed ourselves, allowing for a few handfuls of rice to be offered to the gods, we had only two months food
left.” p.18 However, these poor people do not consider it as a hard thing although they
have to spend a lot of money to hold festivals, rituals, or religion ceremony to honor gods. Whereas in fact, there are a lot of pujas which are held by Hindu people that
spend a lot of money. When they begin to cultivate season and harvest season, they do not forget to do a puja. When one of poor families gets sick, they ask Brahmin or
Indian priest to do a puja. When long dry season strikes India, the farmers also ask a Brahmin
in the village to do a puja so that rain will come soon. Here is explained by Lapierre as follows:
“Even the most optimistic began to worry. Was the Bhagavan, the great god, angry? The Pals went with their neighbors to the village priest to ask him
celebrate a puja to induce the rain to come. In return for his services the Brahmin will asked for two dhotis for himself, a sari for his wife, and twenty
rupees two U.S. dollar. Everyone went rushing to the mahajan to borrow more money.”p.16
There are many other rituals in India that need money. For instance, doing a
puja for a funeral and puja for asking bless to gods also spend money. In order to
hold a proper funeral ceremony for his father, Ram Chandler, Hasari’s friend, has to
pay two thousand rupees 120 pound sterling so that a pujari agrees to hold his father funeral. As a Hindu, Ram believes that holding a proper funeral for his parents
is one of duties of a son. Thus, Hindu people never regret to spend a lot of money for the funeral of their parents. Even, they do not doubt to borrow money from
mahajans . This statement below is Ram’s story in the novel:
“He had a mortgaged our land to pay off the interest, but even that hadn’t been enough, and when he died I had to borrow even more to give him a
proper funeral. Two thousand rupees Two hundreds U.S dollar. First there were the four dhotis and no less than one hundred and twenty feet of cotton
for the pujari to get him to recite the prayers. Then there were two hundreds pounds of rice, as much flour, quantities of oil, sugar, spices, and vegetables
food guests. Finally, we had to have one hundred pounds of wood for the pyre and baksheesh in cash for those in charge of the cremation.”p.85
Indian has tendency to hold religion ceremony. They hold every religion ceremony and ritual to honor gods and also to collect good karma. They believe that
all those happen in the universe such as birth, death, disaster are from gods. Even though they have to struggle only for earning money, they will give anything to gods
without doubt. Sometimes, it takes several days to hold celebration in honor gods. They do not hesitate to spend money only for decorating houses, roads, or
companies. Even poor people also do the same thing. The poor who lives in slums do not forget to decorate the house and the slums little path. Sometimes, foreigners who
visit or live in India do not understand with the way of life and the way of thinking of these poor people. A question comes into their mind. How these poor people can
spend a lot of money to celebrate every religion ceremony. Whereas in fact, they are fighting in order to keep alive in the middle of poverty.
The foreigner like Kovalsky who lives among these people sees that these poor people work so hard every day without earning much money. Thus, he is
difficult to understand the way of thinking and the way of life of poor Indian. He becomes more confused when he knows these poor people habitually buy new
clothes for the sake of honor gods. They do not think that even their salary is not enough to buy food. These poor people think that it does not matter even though they
do not eat if they can buy new clothes. Some of them even borrow some money to mahajan
or usurer. The statement below is told how mad Kovalsky, one of the main characters of the novel, knowing that festivals in India spend a lot of money:
“Kovalski was outrage that so much money should be squandered on festivals, while so much poverty prevailed. He was wrong. His rational
western reaction failed to take into account the most essential point of all: that these people lived in a state of osmosis with their deities. And he forgot too
the role these goods played in everyday life. Any intervention of fortune, good or bad: work, rain hunger, a birth, a death-In fact everything was
ascribed to the gods.” p.215 The things that these poor people do in order to gain good karma often make
them drown deeper into the cycle of poverty. Their loan to mahajan for buying new clothes or for decorating their houses often makes them work for their entire life to
pay it. The statement below tells how Indians are willing to borrow some money from usurer for buying new clothes when a festival is held:
“On this unique occasion in the year, thousands of poor people exchanged their worn clothes for the carefully preserved festivals attire, or perhaps even
bought for the occasion by going into debt with the neighborhood usurer” p.218
These poor people are also willing to starve if they can do the celebration. Sometimes, it needs sacrifice in order to gain good karma. It does not matter how the
sacrifice will make them suffer than before. Here is the explanation from one of the
Non-Government Organizations which tells that festivals have caused no improvement of people’s condition in India:
“Of all these celebrations, however, surely none bore witness to the presence of God in Calcutta with more intensity than the Hindu pujas in honor of the
goddess Durga. Even though with the passing of the years the festival had change somewhat to become more of a commercial fair, it still contributed to
making this city a place of faith. Nowhere was this characteristic so clearly in evidence as in the slums, at the heart of this disinherited people to whom the
experts of the Ford Foundation predicted no improvement of their condition before the year 2020”. p.217
Sometimes, not only doing bhakti or doing ritual obligation who can make the poor India become suffer, but doing karma or doing dharmaduty in order
to gain good karma can also make poor Indians become suffer. Hiriyana mentions 1956: 37 that there are two classes of dharma which have to be done by every
human being. The first class of dharma is got by human from the caste, for instance Hasari is a farmer so Hasari’s caste is vaisya. As a vaisya, Hasari’s duties are to
administer and to deal with material goods Lemaitre, 1959: 107. The second class describes as common or general dharma. This class defines the virtues like self-
control, kindness, and truth speaking which obligatory on all. Besides duties that derived from an individual’s class and station, general
duties are also present on all moral beings. Those include honesty, courage, service, faith, self-control, purity, and non-violence. General duties also present other duties
like duties as a father, a mother, a son a daughter, a brother, a sister etc 1993: 224. The duty of a father to marry off his daughters is obligatory. In India marriage of a
daughter is sacred duty for a father. A father of a daughter usually has responsibility to seek a husband for his daughter. In India, seeking a good husband for a daughter is
a father’s duty. Each father who has daughters do not avoid it because by doing it, a
father will gain a good karma. Although this custom often cause a ruin for the father but there is no father who tries to avoid this duty. Finding a husband for a daughter
is written by Lapierre in chapter 1: “The girl’s aging father had at last found her husband, and nothing was to
prevent the wedding festivities from proceeding according to the traditional ritual”. p.10
This traditional duty often cause suffers for poor people that a father of a
bride must give dowry to the groom. The man’s family will ask a large amount of money and various goods to the woman’s family. Sometimes, the man’s request is
out of reach. When Prodip Pal wants to marry off his daughter, he also has to give dowry to the man’s family. As poor family, it is difficult to fulfill the man‘s request.
Lapierre mentions in the statement below that marriage of a daughter has ruined million of Indian families:
“How many million of Indian families, for generations, have been ruined by the marriages of their daughters? First there was the dowry, an ancestral
custom officially abolished since Independence, but one that still prevailed in practice. The small farmer with whom Hasari’s father had negotiated the
marriage of his last daughter had demanded one bicycle, two cotton loin clothes, a transistor, a half an ounce of gold, plus a few jewels for the young
bride-all amounted to a good thousand rupees some and hundred U.S dollars”. p.11
Besides giving dowry to the groom, custom also compels only the girl’s father who has to pay all the cost of the marriage ceremony. That is why marriage of a
daughter is a cruel bloodletting for the poor people. Sometimes, in order to give the dowry and to pay the cost of the marriage ceremony, the girls’ family borrows
money from mahajans. Whereas, they know that borrowing money from mahajan is same like suicide. Lapierre states that custom required only the girl’s father who
pays all the cost of the marriage ceremony:
“Custom required, furthermore, that girl’s father, alone, covers the cost of the ceremony, which meant finding thousand rupees to feed the families and
guests and buy present for officiating Brahmin. For these poor people it was a cruel bloodletting, but the marriage of a daughter is a sacred duty for a father.
Once his last daughter had left home, the old man would have completed his task on earth. Then at last he would be able to await in peace the visitation of
Yama
, god of the dead.”p.11 Hasari himself cannot avoid the marriage custom when his daughter, Amrita
has come of age for getting married. Whereas at that time, he has already moved to the city with his family and other villagers in order to search for food. The mass
exodus of villagers to Calcutta is caused by a long dry season which strikes West Bengal. That awful dry season has caused the villages in West Bengal run out of
water. Then, it causes the failure of harvest, the death of the livestock, and the hardest thing of all, the run out of food. This statement below is explains about the
worse condition that causes Hasari moves to Calcutta: “November went by. The departure of the cattle had out off the peasant only
fuel supply. There was no more dung with which to cook food and no more milk either. Gone was the sound of children’s laughter. Their small stomachs
swelled up like balloons and several of them died the victims of worms, diarrhea, and fever-yet in reality victims of hunger”. p.19
After there poor farmers have run out off foodstuff and water finally Pal’s
family and other families in villages come into the point which forces them to give up. The land that is the source of living of hundreds thousands of Indian farmers
cannot give them living anymore. Hence, the same as other farmers in his village, Prodip Pal makes a decision that Hasari has to move to city to find a job. The
evidence is explained by Lapierre as follow: “The Pals’ resistance was coming to an end. One day the old man gathered
his family around him. From knotted corner of his dhoti he took out five tightly rolled ten-rupee notes and two one rupee coins and handed them to
Hasari.”p.20
That is why Hasari live and struggle for survival in the city name Calcutta. Calcutta is the capital city of West Bengal and one of the most crowded
cities in the world. In this city, the refugees, who come from villages and countries around it, hope to get a better life. However, getting a better life is not an easy thing
in the big city like Calcutta. In this city, Hasari faces more difficulties than in his village. He also has to struggle harder than before if he still wants him and his family
survives in Calcutta. The most difficulty of Hasari comes up when he has to marry off his daughter. At that time, Hasari has lived in Calcutta for four years as rickshaw
driver and Amrita is already sixteen years old. Hasari realizes this is the time for him to find a good husband for his daughter. This statement below expresses how Hasari
really wants to marry off his daughter: “For Indian father there was no one powerful obsession than that of marrying
off his daughter. Amrita the rickshaw puller’s daughter, was only sixteen years old but if the cruel years on the pavement and in the shantytown had not
tarnished her freshness, the gravity of her expression be spoke the fact that she had long since ceased to be a child.”p.427
Hasari cannot avoid the custom, as same as other million hundreds of Indian
fathers who have daughters. He knows that his struggle for keeping his whole family alive will not persist for a long time, because tuberculosis has infected his body.
Thus, he has to find a proper husband for his daughter as soon as possible. However, Hasari also realizes that as a daughter of a rickshaw puller Amrita
is not really chased by man. Consequently, Hasari has to collect enough dowries in order to get a proper husband for his daughter. He does not want Amrita get married
with a man who is blind or who is infected leper. Nevertheless, in order to get a very
humblest boy, Hasari has to prepare five thousand rupees for the dowry. It takes two years pulling rickshaw without resting to get that much money. Another choice to get
five thousand rupees is borrowing money from mahajan. But his disease cannot be healed anymore, so he will not have too much time to earn the money. The statement
below shows the confusion of Hasari in finding a good husband for his daughter: “I can’t give my daughter to a man who is paralyzed or blind or a leper” the
rickshaw puller was to lament to Kovalski. Only such disinherited people would agree to take a girl in marriage without a dowry. The poor man never
stopped doing all kinds of calculations but they all came back to the same fateful figure. Five thousand rupees That meant the whole years of running
about between the shafts of his rickshaw or lifetime of being indebted to the slum’s mahajan. But what life time and how much running about? “When
you cough red,” he was to go on to say,” you watch the sun rise ach morning and wonder whether you’ll see is set.” p.429
Hasari must find a way to get that money in a short time. Hasari knows that his
salary as a rickshaw puller is not enough to collect five thousand rupees. Although he still work when the flood comes, it is still not enough. Hence, when somebody offers
him five hundred rupees for his bone, he feels like getting bless from gods. If he accepts this offering, he will find the rest money by working everyday during rainy
season and he will ask his son to find garbage that still can be sold. However, Hasari does not accept this offer directly. He is afraid that gods are upset if he let his body to
be cut and to be sold. Moreover, as a Hindu, Hasari believes that someone’s body can transfer his soul after his death to another body if the body is burnt until reduces
ashes. Here is Lapierre explanation about that Hindu’s belief: “The former peasant was equally anxious not to offend the gods. The Hindu
faith required that, for the soul to “transmigrate” into another from after death, the body should first be destroyed and reduced to ashes by the fire that
purifies all.” What will become of my soul if my bones and my flesh are cut
up by those butchers instead of being burned in the flames of a funeral pyre?” lamented the rickshaw puller.”p.433
After discussing with his friend, Hasari agrees to sell his bones. He hopes the
gods will understand with his decision to complete his mission on earth. Sometimes, for poor people like Hasari, compromise is needed to make the ideals of faith and the
imperative of survival walk side by side. In the statement below Lapierre mentions that Hasari should accept the offer of sell his bone:
“A think you should take this opportunity to further the completion of your mission here below,” he declared reluctantly, drawing the rickshaw puller’s
attention to his daughter who was busy delousing her little brother at the other end of compound.”p.433
Hasari is certain that he will die peacefully after his daughter gets married. He has done his duties in this present life and he has tried to do all the best for his
family. Besides struggle for keeping his family alive, Hasari has also found a husband for his daughter. Although to complete his duties in earth, he must sacrifice
himself. Therefore, he does not have any regret if he passes away. Now he is waiting for his death while hoping to get a good karma in his future life. It is true that getting
a good karma needs suffering and sacrificing. Here is Hasari’s belief about his karma that is explained by Lapierre in the novel:
“I know that my chakra will soon cease to turn for this life,” he declared.” “I’ve had such a tough time since I left my village that I am almost sure…”
Again he hesitated, almost sure that today my karma is less heavy and will have me born again into a better incarnation.”p.426
4.2.3. The Influence of Karma on Family
