It was at a wedding in Bharatpur,east Rajasthan,in 1991 that Nathulal Verma decided he would be a pandit. For someone who was brought up to understand that even an invocation of God is decided strictly on the basis of the caste you are born into,Verma,a Dalit,lost no time in deciding that he would take to priesthood. The Brahmin priest who was called in to perform the wedding rituals got up and walked out when he was told that the couple were both Dalits, says Verma,who works in the cataloguing section of the Kota divisional library. No amount of persuasion or pleading,even an offer of more money,could convince the priest to stay behind and complete the ceremony,he says. It was an unfortunate thing to have happened. After that,I decided that I would become a priest and offer my services to the people of my community, says Verma,who takes time out for his priestly duties. Even with his knowledge of Sanskrit,which he learnt in school,Verma,still needed a mentor. After months of searching,I met Satyanarayan Agnihotri at a Gayatri Ashram and he agreed to teach me the ways of a Hindu priest, says Verma. After years of practice,Verma opened an informal school in Kota to train Dalits in priesthood,though he says he doesnt have too many upper castes among his students. For the last two years,I have been training about 20 young priests in my house, says Verma. At present,five Dalit and OBC priests perform rituals in Kota and the neighbouring districts of Baran and Jhalawar. One of his first students is Satyanarayan Samoli,an OBC,who was a sweeper with the Kota Municipal Corporation. We used to find it difficult to perform religious rituals since no Brahmin pandit would come to our homes. But now things are changing and we can perform any ritual we want, says Samoli. However,he says,their services are limited to scheduled castes or OBCs. Verma says that while other communities ask him for his services,the change has been slow to come about. Other Dalit communities like Regars,Bairwas and Malis call us to perform rituals birth,death,inauguration or marriage rites, he says. Verma says,You can seat me in front of any priest of any age and community in a contest of sorts and I can match them all word for word in any ritual. We are catching up now. No longer are such rituals the sole domain of upper castes, says Samoli. But both of them assert that all they want is a level playing field. We only want to be treated as equals, says Samoli.
