Saturday 13 May 2017

The traditional EGS

The true Employment Guarentee Scheme. 

All cooking was done in mud pots. A community close by, 4 km away in Kumarapalle near Kothapeta, makes these from the local tank mud. There are rituals built into festivals which make creates sustainability in a community. Every Govindalu festival the food has to be cooked in a new pot. The potters have a huge sale prior to the festival. Every marriage had a significant role for the potter as the arivenis were central to the marriage.

The kumaravaalu are part of the 'caste system'. The intellegensia damn caste, damn rituals - and then they can please also create such systems of employment guarentee.

Komakkambedu Himakiran Anugula We had a mandatory number of vessels we bought every year. Like potters, barbers also had a mandatory quota of haircuts! We anyways paid them in grains for a year.

Aparna Krishnan And each caste, lower or higher, had a deeply respected role in some context. The barbers are low in the caste hierarchy, but they alone play the melam in the temple thro' the pandaga nela of Sankranthi. And are respected and given dakshina for that. The while man unable to understand the nuances due to a language handicap labelled it uniformly bad. The elite intelligensia (maybe due to the same reason) also gave it the same uniform dismissal.

Komakkambedu Himakiran Anugula Local economy, business transactions ensuring harmony, guaranteed career scheme!

Aparna Krishnan Chuck out caste. Put all in school. Make all aspire for desk jobs. Make all unemployable. The modern state is what we have now.

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