Caste in stone?

I went to Enoch's school today to sign a register confirming his admission into First Standard.

It will only take 10 minutes - the circular said - and it only took that long. The line of parents quickly formed and we trundled into the school and dutifully checked up in the register whether the name had been written correctly as well as the other details.

In the over-sized register, with its neat annotations in blue ink, one interesting column stood out from the rest.

It said "caste".

I looked up and down the column. Most children had had the word "Hindu" written there.

Enoch had the word "Christian" next to his name.

The man ahead of me was a Jain. Next to his son's name was "Hindu."

The school is run by a Jain trust - so could hardly be faulted for not knowing who Jains are.

But the question remains. Why are so still so obsessed about classifying people into groups? What value is there for the school to put this designation on a child?

And what is our real identity? Is my son a Christian because his parents have put that word in the 'religion' box on his admission form? We certainly did not write 'Christian' at anytime where a question of 'caste' was asked. In fact I don't even recall the word appearing in any of the admission forms. If there was a question we must have left it blank.

The reason I had to come and give my signature is because the details of Enoch Anand Graceson Eicher (all the names we have genorously endowed our son with *were* spelled correctly - thank you!) will now become part of Enoch's official identity. His school certificate will be used later at various times. But with the names I have given, we also see Enoch being put into a certain box.

Mind you, I did not have much time to ruminate on all of this at the time. The circular said it would take 10 minutes to do. I had budgeted about that much time to get the job done. I signed and left.

And so my darling boy gets his first bit of branding. Its a bit of a cruel world isn't it? Not that we have to buy into it - not that we have to kow-tow to everything around us - but the fact is that the folks who set the categories (or purpose or otherwise) usually come up trumps. As Enoch grows up, we will have lots of opportunities to talk about these things - but strong structures are in place - to keep people in their places.

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Just one more little potshot and then I'll sign off. When I meet folks the inevitable question comes up: where are you from? 4 decades of answering the question - and I still on occasion find that it gets my goat (o.k. - change that to 'often gets my goat' - or bakri!).

I usually bring out the potted family history - but most of the time my interrogator is not actually listening. He is waiting for a cue. Once I say that my great-grandfather was born in Canada, then there is a smile on his face, a relaxation - a little bit of internal silent dialogue goes on in the dear man's head: "Ah! Now we know where you are from. You are Canadian!"

The fact that we have 105 years of history in apna Bharat. The fact that my dear G-Granddad was a mennonite-french-descended-switzerland-emigrated chappie who himself went to the US of A doesn't matter. A box has been ticked. A label has been found. He's a foreigner. A Canadian. That's who he his.

And we are like this only. We love to classify and categorize. Our restless minds unsettled by the mish-mash, by the uncertain. We need order. Who is who. Where are you from. What box do you fit into. No wonder the Brits did so well here for so long...