– The mother of my great grandfather had come riding on the arrow of fire that cleared the wilderness. She was spotted by the son of a local tribal king and they both got married and together sowed the first seeds of this village.
– Is this true?
– Yes, it’s true. The local PWD babu once came with his team and painted the name of our village on the highway signboard in English and everyone started calling it Teerpaar (Beyond the Arrow). That’s wrong. The name is तीरपर (Teerpar) – On the Arrow.
– Sorry. I too pronounced it incorrectly. Teerpar.
– The arrow is still with us; it’s a family heirloom. I can show it to you if you want.
– I would love to. Can we see it now?
– Yes. Come with me.
I followed him through the narrow lanes of the village, past the lazy cows, munching the time, past the clay huts painted white, with their exposed courtyards smeared with layers of cow-dung paste. A bicycle crossed us with pink candy-floss, sticking out from the carrier like balloons. Chasing it was a group of children, half-naked. One of them was rolling a tire with a stick and running alongside. Then a lady, in her mid-thirties, called him out and he, obeying his mother (I think she was his mother), turned his direction and went straight inside the next house with his rolling tire, without compromising on his speed. The sun was getting hotter by the minute but the cool, wet soil kept the temperature bearable. I was visiting this village, 30 kilometers north-east of Bhagalpur, as a part of the research for my first book. Casteism was an important part of the story, so important that I could even call it a major character, and to understand the first-hand accounts, I had planned visits to a number of villages in Bihar and Chhattisgarh. These would be followed by conversations with Dalits in the cities, working in multi-national companies, and the comparison that would arise, I had expected, would form the central dilemma of the story.
But I was taken by surprise when I met Sargi, the youngest in the village, from the caste of Dom. He was fluent in English and instead of answering my questions on his family’s place in the village, he diverted the conversation to the fact that the village was formed by his ancestors. It confused me a little as the caste of Dom in this part of the country, especially in Bihar and West Bengal, was considered, in the archaic hierarchy of the Hindu caste system, one of the lowest of the lows. This status in the society would have meant no education at all in the village school.
– My father was the first to come out of the profession of cleaning the village sewages, and buy books from Naugachhia (a town in Bihar). He started working as an auto-rickshaw driver with the basics of accounting and calculations. Being the only driver from Teerpar to Naugachhia, after initial couple of months, the people gave in and started riding his auto-rickshaw. For the sake of their purity, he installed a black curtain between the passenger seat at the back and himself, lest anyone touched him mistakenly.
– How do you speak such a good English?
– Reservation has helped me. I self-studied at home because the school would not admit us. I am not particularly unhappy because the teachers were mostly absent. With basic education and a knack for mathematics, I got the admission into Science College, Patna; completed my eleventh and twelfth classes there, and then cracked the Joint Entrance Examination.
– You went to the IIT (Indian Institute of Technology)?
– I went to IIT Kanpur but couldn’t complete it. The lessons were difficult and I could not cope up with the syllabus. I failed in the first year and came back to the village just this June.
– That’s unfortunate. You could have worked hard. That’s an opportunity you lost that many crave for.
– You’re kind. I’ve mostly heard ‘That’s an opportunity someone else lost because I got the admission and quit’. I worked as hard as I could, but I was competing with the best of the bests with generations of education and failures and successes behind them. My father was the first literate in my ancestral lineage. It was difficult. But I am happy. I am at a place where maybe some of their grandparents or great-grandparents were in terms of scholarly achievements. My children will get there sooner. The steep curve, supported by the much-abused and often mistaken Reservation, will eventually converge with the other already upward-sloped straight line.
The earnestness and hope in his voice was deep. How could I discuss hope? How can anyone discuss hope? Finally, we reached his house. I stooped in respect to his mother and grandmother who were sun-bathing in the courtyard while chopping vegetables for lunch. He asked me to wait in the aangan (courtyard) while he brought the arrow. It would be extremely dark inside, he said, and I obliged. He reappeared in a couple of minutes with a stone the size of a Football, although unevenly shaped. One side of it was slightly pointed with a metal like coating.
– This is the Teer (Arrow) of Teerpar, the vaahana (vehicle) of my family.
– I had thought it would be an actual arrow. This is a large stone with a metal coating on one side.
– Sir, this is a meteorite. I thought you would guess it instantly.
It was then that I noticed the texture of the stone. It was not something I had ever touched. It felt as if I was touching powder, smooth and rough at the same time, but firm like iron. The metal coating was not a coating but the meteorite constituents, most probably iron and nickel, exposed on the side of its entrance to the Earth’s atmosphere.
– The mother of your great grandfather came on a Meteorite?
– That’s the legend that has been passed over generations.
– But you know this is not possible. Sorry, I do not want to burst the myth of your ancestry. I know India is a land of stories, but I am sure you do not believe it.
– What other choice do I have? Either this or to believe that our forefathers came from the feet of Brahma, the lowest of the low, destined to work in sewages and burn dead people; to believe that if our kids eat with fellow kids, they will spread diseases because we are dirty people, despite bathing daily with the same Lux and washing our clothes with the same Rin. You see, I am selfish. We are selfish. We have chosen the truth which is best for us and our children. Who can say which truth is truer? The only truth is we are born and we die. This planet was born and will die, the Sun that gives life, will engulf it one day; nothing was and nothing will remain.
– If your forefathers were the ones who started the village, why are you considered the lowest of the low?
– It is true that our forefathers founded the village, but this fact alone is not enough to make us equal to others. Do you think Native Americans are the ones who rule the USA? Or do aboriginals run Australia?
I thought about it for a moment.
– What do you do Sargi?
– I teach at a private school in Naugachhia. I am an English teacher and sometimes teach Mathematics too.
I handed the meteorite back to him. As I was about to leave, he asked.
– Which caste do you belong to?
– Why?
– That will help me understand if I can ask you to stay for lunch.
After the sumptuous lunch, we walked to the village river, hardly one kilometer away from the village. Birds dived into the water, and flew away with their fresh catches. The two of us discussed my book as we strolled on the banks, and I promised to send him a signed copy if it ever got published.
– Sargi, I have a question. It may not be very comfortable but I nevertheless want to ask you.
– Please go ahead. A question is the least I can get uncomfortable with. It’s the statements without questions or discussions that worry me the most.
– You’re a philosopher. (He smiled) What is the real story behind the meteorite? Have you tried reporting it so that it can get assessed? You have something that may have come from even outside our solar system, can get you significant money, and at the same time enrich scientists in their studies.
– No, I haven’t tried reporting it. I do not want to. Every day, Earth receives thousands of kilograms of extra-terrestrial dust. The scientists can continue with their research using them. Meteorites are not that rare you see and they can make do with one rock less.
After chatting for another hour where he answered almost all the questions I had related to the narrative I was building for my book, I bid him goodbye. As I walked my way to the highway to catch the bus back to Bhagalpur, I heard a saint sing a prayer in Bhojpuri which involved him stretching his breaths at regular intervals. He sat under the Peepal tree which was the signage for Teerpar before the blue signboard appeared. I stood there listening to him for a while, thinking about Sargi, his mother and grandmother, all chatting together in the aangan of his hut. It was then that the realization struck me. It was not different from what Sargi told me when I asked him again about the truth of the meteorite.
The mother of his great grandfather had indeed arrived on the arrow of fire from the skies, the fire that still burns, killing some and injuring some others.
Shishir Chaudhary 
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