STARMOTE

When I was studying in +2,
my friends were everything to me.

It was a time of great joy in our lives —
the first trace of a moustache,
a new bike,
first love.

After the half-yearly exams, like everyone else,
we began dreaming of college
and discussing which institution to choose.

Among my friends, I was considered the studious one.
While discussing counselling quotas,
one of them said,

“You study so well — and since you’re SC,
you’ll easily get into a good college.”

Until that moment, none of my friends knew
that I belonged to a Scheduled Caste.

That evening, as usual,
my closest friend came home to study with me.
We studied in my brother’s room upstairs.

That day, my father had taken out my grandfather’s old photograph
to change its frame.

My grandfather was a graduate,
a man fluent in English.
The letters he had written in English to my father
were treasured possessions.

In that photograph,
he stood dressed in a coat and suit.

Seeing it, my friend asked,

“Your grandfather wore a coat and suit…
but you’re SC, right?”

I didn’t understand anything then.

When I asked my father about it,
he said only one thing:

“For people like us, education alone is the ladder.
Never let go of it.
One day, when others see you,
your education and the position you reach through it
must erase the caste identity beneath you.
Otherwise, you yourself will become an example
used to define your caste.”

That day, caste entered my life for the first time.
It overturned the course of my life.

From that moment,
I decided no one should ever identify me by caste.

I wanted to learn everything.
I never wanted to say “I don’t know” to anyone —
so that no one could ever say,

“He’s SC; everything is easy for him, everything is free.”

With intellectual pride, I would say:

“I deserved it because I earned it.”

But all this was possible only because of my friends.

Not once did anyone distance me saying I was SC.

We called each other’s parents amma and appa,
never uncle or aunty.

My friends were rationalists who believed in annihilating caste.

Had everyone been blessed with such friendships,
then whenever oppression appeared,
people like Rohith Vemula or Muthukrishnan
might have chosen resistance instead of despair.

This post is for my friends —
who embraced me without judgment
and allowed me to grow
without the shame of caste,
with the pride of knowledge.