Zo, Zomo and Beda

Context: Zo, zomo and beda are the blacksmiths and musicians of Spiti valley who are perceived as lower in the social hierarchy. Although no violent atrocities have happened against them because of the different social label enforced on them, they still face subtle forms of discrimination that is manifested in the way their used dishes and edibles are treated; in the way they are expected to be seated in someone else’s house. The treatment meted out to them is in many ways similar to the ideologies of purity and pollution in the Hindu caste system. Looking at the differential treatment meted out to them and how they have internalized this discrimination disheartens and angers me at the same time. All of this begins with socially conditioning childen of the perceived higher social ranks (ruva thovu) to minimize mingling with the zo, zomo beda community. I always think about how a zo child/adult feels when they are treated this way. This poem is my attempt to understand life from their perspective. To show how this system of symbolically labelling them as pollutants makes no sense. To unlearn some things we have been taught to believe.

Seated near the door

Away from everyone else

I thought to myself

Why this segregation?

But it was not new

When I was young I remember

A friend who rejected my fun puffs offer

And blurted, “You are a zo and I won’t mix mouth with you”

“Society will segregate me and my fate will cry in misery too”

I could not fathom her words then

For I was just a kid

Of perhaps ten

And all these questions troubled my brain lid

Am I dirt?

Am I a pollutant?

Am I a bad omen?

Or a disgusting chewed sugarcane?

Do I not bleed the same colour as other Spitian people?

Do I not have eyes, organs, affections, passions?

Fed with the same food

Hurt with the same weapons

Warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter

As any other Spitian is

If you tickle us, do we not laugh?

If you poison us, do we not die?

Then WHY WHY WHY!!!

Why this segregation and disgust towards us?

As these thoughts raced through my brain

I remembered my friend’s words once again

I am a Zo and this identity has ignited a fire within me

A fire to fight back

Not for much but just for love, humanity

And basic human dignity which we all deserve.

Works cited:

Shakespeare, William,The Merchant of Venice. Harlow, Essex, England:Longman, 1994.

P.S. Shylock’s speech encapsulates my feelings so well.