One day a sympathetic teached decided to show the other boys that Mahar boy Bheemrao was as good as any of them. He asked Bheemrao to go to the black board and write the words he would dictate.
Bheemrao felt elated at receiving the attention of the teacher. He got up and walked towards the blackboard that stood across the class room on the other side. Suddenly, a roar of protests rose from the benches. A look of horror was on the faces of the boys. They were up on their feet. A boy screamed, “Bheema! Stop!! Don’t you go near the black board!!!”
Bheemrao stood petrified. His face had gone white. The teacher was shocked. He asked the boys angrily, “Why, why do you stop Bheemrao?”
A boy explained, “Sir, we have kept our lunch packets under the blackboard. If Mahar Bheema goes there our lunch will be defiled. Then, we can’t eat it and may be, will have to throw it to dogs. We shall remove our packets before Bheema writes the words.”
The boys rushed to the blackboard like a pack of dogs as Bheemrao stood with his back pressed against wall in sheer terror. The teacher looked embarrassed. He could do nothing except look at Bheemrao sympathetically.
Later, the teacher patted Bheemrao’s back to console him and told him not to take the incident to heart. Such incidents kept tearing the heart of the Mahar boy. Things were not rosy at home front too. His mother Bheembai fell ill. Proper treatment was denied to her. No local vaid would touch a Mahar woman to examine and prescribe medicine. After a brief illness she passed away. It was a big blow to the family.
Now Ramjirao had to cook the food himself for the family. He would return home late at night from his duty and then cook food for his children. In the morning the father and the son would eat the nights’ left overs and rush to the duty and the school respectively. Ramjirao’s godown and Bheemrao’s school were at quite some distance to reach where they had to start early from their home.
Bheemrao’s growing body demanded food in good quantity. The left overs eaten in the morning barely carried him to lunch by which time he felt so hungry that tears came to his eyes. He would reach home in the evening almost starving to death and his knees buckling down. His hunger affected mind would refuse to retain whatever the teachers taught at school. When it became intolerable he revealed his problem to his father. The father understood it from his now experience. He asked Bheeva to rush home at lunch break and eat something because a women used to cook lunch for other children during the day. From that day on, Bheemrao would race home at lunch recess, hastily gobble food and then race back to school. The school was far off. He would mostly miss the after lunch-break class. His studies suffered.
The headmaster summoned Bheemrao to his office and admonished, “Bheemrao! You are becoming careless about the studies. I am getting bad reports about you. I must warn…”
Bheemrao burst into tears and revealed his lunch problem to the Headmaster who listened the pathetic story in shock. The Headmaster felt pity for the poor boy. After some thinking he said, “Bheemrao! You need not run to home for lunch from tomorrow.”
From that day, the Headmaster started bringing extra rotis and subzi in his lunch pack for Bheemrao. The Headmaster was known as Mr. Ambedkar. He had become fond of Bheemrao. The more humiliations Mahar boy faced the more Mr. Ambedkar tried to shield him with his kindness. One day he told Bheemrao that he could use his surname as well. That is how Bheemrao started adding ‘Ambedkar’ to his name.
But the world outside Ambedkar’s kindness was very cruel. For one good soul Bheemrao was confronted by thousands of snakes who hissed hatred at him. Even the colony barber refused to give him a hair cut because he was a Mahar. So, his elder sister used to shear his hair with a large pair of scissors without any pattern or design.
Bheemrao loved singing couplets of Sant Kabeer with his father in devotional style. Ramjirao was devoted to Sant Kabeer because his couplets preached equality of human beings. His message was that the love and kindness were the only true religions. Such teachings felt like a soothing balm on the wounded souls of the untouchables. Most of the Mahars were Kabeer faithfuls for the same reason.
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