Months later with police report filed for the stabbing and the assault, cremation and rituals for the departed performed, Samata collected her tears, rounded up her children and head out to the city. A friend had given her the contact for a social worker and Samata was determined to take the landlord’s son to court.
A short, petite woman with a straight spine and face as round as the moon, the social worker received the family graciously. She listened to their narrative of the incident that led to murder done openly in front of witnesses. But the accused were held in jail overnight and then released after a phone call from the landlord. She listened to the numerous injustices as large scale as assaults and cheating them of their hard work and of prejudices seemingly minute as a separately designated water source. Samata stressed that theirs was not an isolated event, or unique case in just her village. Coming from a tribal village did not make her less human and her educated children deserved as much if not more respect than the landlords and overseers.
Her final plea to the social worker was that even though her husband was no more, she refused to shed anymore tears or mope over her loss. She was illiterate and had put up with the discrimination, in fact was treated worse than even the beasts in the villager’s cowshed, but her children were literate, earned decent incomes, lived well, and read extensively. It’s time that people like the landlord and his son learned that people from her caste were not helpless, literate or not, and refused to be continued to be victimized.
Staying true to her name, Samata called for equanimity, equability and equality where with composure and poise all humans are treated equally and the world is in balance. She demanded justice.
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