A few tall tales about Ambedkar

The Living Stream

Many years ago, Siddalingaiah, the Kannada poet, folklorist and co-founder of the Dalit movement in Karnataka, met an aged Ambedkarite in Bedikehala, a village in Belgaum district. The old man, who lay on a charpoy, was known to have seen Ambedkar. Siddalingaiah asked him, “What were your impressions when you saw him?” Ill and weak, the old man replied: “Ambedkar had visited Bedikehala. When I went over to see him, thousands of people were already standing on either side of the road he was to pass through. Each one of them held a stick in each hand. Fearing someone might pelt stones at Ambedkar or harm him in some other way, they had crossed the sticks, scissors-like, up in the air to shield his passage. Their raised sticks didn’t let me get a clear glimpse of him.”

*****

A VIP visitor once visited Ambedkar’s house. He wished to see his large collection of books. Inside the home library, the visitor asked him skeptically, “Have you read all these books?” “Yes,” the host said with confidence. The visitor proceeded to pull out a book from one of the shelves and opened a page at random. He asked, “Do you know what appears on Page 59?” Ambedkar recalled the contents of that page in an instant. Pulling out another book, the visitor asked, “What’s being discussed on Page 152 of this book?” Ambedkar knew exactly what that page contained. The visitor didn’t give up. He picked out another book and chose another page at random. Ambedkar clearly remembered this page, too. This went on until the visitor was left with no choice but to give in. He exclaimed, “You are truly a son of Saraswati.”

*****

A foreign reporter arrived in India to interview major political figures. He decided to visit Gandhi first. But Gandhi was already asleep when he got there. He then dropped in at Nehru’s house. But Nehru had also gone to sleep. He visited Sardar Patel next. He had also fallen asleep by then. It was past midnight when the reporter arrived at Ambedkar’s house. But Ambedkar was wide awake and working away at his desk. The reporter asked him, “All the other leaders are already in bed. How is it that you are still awake?” Ambedkar replied, “Those leaders have already awakened their people. They can now afford to sleep peacefully. But my people are yet to awaken. So, I have to stay up and keep working.”

*****

After losing his first wife, Ramabai, Ambedkar remained unmarried for over twelve years. He would say, “The Dalits consider me as their father. Marrying a Dalit woman again will be difficult as I regard all Dalits as my children.” So, when he married again (Savita Ambedkar), it had to be a woman from another community.

*****

On Friday evening, when I felt that I had to write on Ambedkar, since his birth anniversary was around the corner, I visited Siddalingaiah, a long-time family friend, at his home. “Can you share a few tall tales about Ambedkar?” (His famous autobiography, Ooru-Keri, in fact, shares a delightful one, where a young Ambedkar falls into a mound of ash while climbing down a tree and then swears in front of his jeering friends, “I might now be a Budisaheb (‘An ash-covered Saheb’), but I will become a ‘Babasaheb’ one day.”) Siddalingaiah, a captivating raconteur, went on to narrate one exciting Ambedkar episode after another until close to midnight. I have translated and retold above a few tall tales from among them.

A distinct genre of myth-making, tall tales step above ordinary reality to disclose truths and mysteries about social predicaments. Whether self-consciously funny or dead literal in their style of articulation, they afford nonetheless a precious glimpse of the inner lives of communities, their desires, anxieties and hopes.

The folk lives of Ambedkar -- and, no doubt, those of several other political leaders -- await a careful and creative engagement. The objective biographer’s fixation with facts, it is clear, limits the research focus to certain kinds of archival data, short-changing thereby the task of unpacking public figures as cultural phenomena. Interpretive attention to the novel ways in which communities and individuals allow iconic personalities inside their lives, and indeed help sustain those figures as iconic presence, can richly aid in fulfilling that task.