Writing · Sep 14, 2025
The Devils
Two friendships. Two moments of recognition. A word said with a smile that the slaps and pinches could not compete with.
I am the lowest they could eat with, my Thakur friends said jovially. They wore their pride like generosity: look how kind we are, look how far we extend ourselves.
Mind of a child, cannot know the thousand years of “progress” this was.
Part bewilderment. Part confusion. Part something they wanted me to carry home.
Minds of the children, bringing the devils of their parents to a school playground.
I left them for someone I thought was a better friend.
Another Rajput. He was different, I thought. He broke the ice with soft slaps and pinches. The slaps grew harder. So did everything else.
I carried this strange pride of being able to bear pain. But the pain of feeling inferior bested me. No matter how much I tried to hone my skills, I could not defeat it.
He was different, yes. Oh yes. He did not bother pretending.
Like the slaps, casteism arrived softly. Then one day he used my caste as an insult. “Ghirth.” He said it with a smile. The slaps and pinches could not compete.
One of the ex-Thakur friends saw this happen. For a moment, there was sadness in his eyes. I wanted to disappear.
To return to the kinder overlords would have solved it, right?
He left school in the eighth grade. The devils left with him.