Now, how can I try to explain the encasing power of social definitions? Well, it is not quite easy. For one thing, it is like discussing racism among a mix of people who belong to various colours and ethnic background. One cannot discuss the various negative features of the sides which claim to be facing the brunt of racist comments. For, if these things are mentioned, they would go in for a real violent mood.

I think the best think is to take up my own experience, instead of trying to imagine other persons in the various sections. Basically, I belong to a family that had, from the times I remember, a very superiority complex. It was not connected to any financial acumen, even though one can’t say that the reverse was the truth. Both parents were kind of un-conceding types to the claims of local society. My father had a formidable stature in his business line. My mother was a senior bureaucrat with a very formidable designation name. My one sister, a professor in an elite Engineering college, the other, a paediatrician, and a brother having good social stature among the Indian crowd in a Middle-East nation.

However, I had no designation, other than that of a businessman at times, with lean periods of no business. Many times, in many places in India, to the immediate neighbour, I would be a loafer, when actually I would be quite busy in some grand business enterprise. I did not usually divulge my work or engagements to others around me. What made me refrain was their very obvious requirement to measure me to ‘respect’ or to ‘disrespect’ me. From very early days, in my life, I took up an attitude that I did not want ‘respect’ from ‘Indians’, if that meant that I have to redefine myself as per their social scales. This really took me to a very strange route of disregarding formal education, formal qualifications, socially valued professions, and also to a dislike for government jobs. If someone should say that it was a very perilous route, well, I enjoyed the experience that it gave me, in retrospect. However, there had been so many close calls in my life.

Now, there was this experience that I should bring into the current context. There were times when I would be without money and living in dire situations in some part of the nation. Naturally it is money that can keep up one above and distant from the lower sections of the society. However, when this energy is low, one comes into close proximity to the lower sections of the social order. However, what I observed is that many of the persons of the low order are not much different from so many persons of the high order. Yet, the lower order persons are all encased into a social section from which they cannot escape. It is through their own links to others in the same social order. There are group identities that would have diffused into every one of them.

For example, the way they address the seniors in the society, how they define them, how they measure or evaluate them etc. are all pre-set.

However, in my case, even though during some periods of acute impecuniosities I have come into close proximity to them, I do not allow such codes to enter into me. For, even though I am physically with them, I am mentally at a different level. This difference is really connected to two very specific powerful platforms that I have. One is that even though I wander around the nation, I am still connected to what one may call socially prominent persons, financial acumen and such things. Actually, when introducing myself in a social context, I can use the low level address of where I am at any particular moment or I can simply shift to the address that is connected to my home, my contact at high social and professional levels etc. Even when the exact current physical address is feeble, the other one is almost formidable.  

Now, this is a very significant issue for the lower sections. They have only one address or one social level. Even though everyone of them might be trying hard to elevate themselves through various social links, the fact is that the vast majority of lower class ‘Indians’ do not have a higher address to shift themselves to. Almost all of them are connected to equally feeble platforms.

The thing is that when someone might define me as an Avan due to my seeming poor physical area of existence, the moment I shift to the higher platform, the section is that of Avar. Even if no one specifically ‘respect’ me thus, the social section that I am encased in is of the higher class.

Now, even though some people may think that this is a universal experience, it is not true. Even if one were to claim that such an experience is there in English, in actuality, it would not be there. For, there is no issue of social sections being arrayed vertically on the basis of indicant codes. [I must admit that this particular issue is not exactly there in many households of Kerala, for almost all of them are connected to someone working in the gulf, whereby financial status can be claimed at least in the future]

I mentioned a second factor also that gave me the protection. That was my proficiency in English. Even when I was in a very terrible condition in any part of India, during any time in the last thirty years, I did not feel any social disablement. For, to arrive on a level of equal dignity with anyone of seeming high level all I needed was to shift my communication to English. Now, as a slight digression I should add that this stance of mine, I have seen, did unnerve many persons from the lower sections. For, they couldn’t understand how I could communicative at this level, when they, with more seeming social capacity than me couldn’t communicate thus. The usual experience of mine in this regard would be, them going ahead with some negative information about me to the other persons; so as to desperately stall my social communication. However, these things do not really matter much, for I have rarely lived more than three years in a place. Moreover, such experiences were quite rich in their inputs. For, this book writing has been ignited by such experiences.

Now, continuing on the route of English: Even when everyone around me is encased in a certain type of social environment, my situation was quite different. I was like a marine animal that could live both under water as well as keep its head above the water for any number of hours. For, when I feel stuck in the monotony of the social circle, I just raise my head into the world of English. I was quite well-read in English till my graduation years. That input is still of very formidable standards.

When I emerge out of the social pit, my head is in an English environment, where there are no indicant word codes. I can interact with anyone I want. My reading standards take me up above the meanness of Indian feudal codes and reflexes. With the coming of Internet, actually my ambit went quite high. It went beyond the limits of national boundaries, as well as skin colour connotations. In English, it is my connection to British Classics that I very proud of. Actually, I took a lot of effort to make my children get acquainted with British Classics.

I had much reading knowledge in many other things also. Including higher sides of Physics, World History, Colonial history, Indian epics (puranas), Greek tales at a very young age. I have done intense writings on Islamic themes as well as on Vedic themes. Mostly on ghost writing terms. In spite of all these inputs, I have frantically endeavoured to bring in British Classics into the reading capacity of my children. For, I understand that this is a level of human mind that exists much above the tormenting codes of feudal communication, which can despoil and torment a human society.

I should not continue like this. For, I am not sure what an average reader’s reaction to such claims would be. Yet, what I am hinting at is this. This emerging out of the water into an ambience of individual dignity and freedom is not possible for the majority lower class people of India. For, they have been deliberately kept unlearned in English. Why? For, the very precise reason that they would get a freer ambience to raise their burdened heads into.