From Hide to Cover – The Truth of Samaal Village

Based on the truth of three dalit generations

Situated on the western border of Himachal Pradesh, the village of Samaal is still divided into three parts, and the roots of this division lie in caste. “From Hide to Cover” is the story of the birth of a third part, one that begins with the hide of a dead animal and ends with the cover of a book. It is a journey spanning three generations, where the hands that once skinned leather now hold pens. In this land known as “Devbhoomi” (the Land of the Gods), this is the story of those voices that were always silenced, yet wrote history with soil, hide, and ink. Between the vultures of the past, the anger of the present, and the change yet to come, Samaal village compels us to think about how difficult it is for an oppressed community to move forward and yet, how essential it is to keep moving forward.

Read this story in Hindi

Even today, there wasn’t much change from yesterday. It had been raining heavily for the third consecutive day. Everything outside was lush and green, the sound of chirping birds and the falling raindrops made it hard for me to open my eyes.

“Come on, get up! It’s 9 o’clock. I’m hungry.” Anita’s voice came as the door opened.
“No, first hug me and lie down with me,” I said, turning my face to the other side.
Anita reached over my waist and gave me a warm morning embrace. I turned toward her, placed my right arm beneath her head, kissed her forehead, and said, “I love you.”
The warmth of her body made me feel a gentle heat in my chest, and I began to drift into a sweet dreamlike world.

Anita was talking to someone outside. It was past 9:50.

“He is still sleeping. As soon as he wakes up, I’ll tell him to call you,” Anita’s quiet but clear voice reached me.

I opened the window, picked up the laptop on the nearby table, and reread the ending I had written yesterday. Then I went to the first page and read the book’s title.

From Hide to Cover

I put the laptop aside, stood up, and began to brush my teeth lightly. “The rain shows no sign of stopping,” I said while brushing my teeth.

“Yes. Mohit came and said we should complain to the municipality. Half an hour ago, there was an accident. A vehicle hit a cow on the road. Tell the municipal people to come and take it away.”

I glanced in the mirror while brushing my teeth and asked Anita, “This had to happen. By the way, Fangan Baba will be at home, right?”

“Who?” Anita answered from the kitchen.

“I’be back.” I said and went to Fangan Baba’s house next door.

The rain had eased a little. “Fangan Baba!”

I called out as I reached his house. He was sitting in the veranda of his raw-brick house with a slate roof, smoking his hookah. White beard, tangled hair, bare feet, sitting with his knees bent.

“Come, come, son! What brings you here?”

“Baba! I wanted to ask if you can still skin hides?”

“Not anymore, son!”

“But you used to clean hides very well.”

“Gud, gud, gud, gud,” the hookah’s engine hummed; the sound that lets one know it was on.

“Yes. I can still do that.”

“Will you do it for me? There was an accident on the road an hour ago and a cow was killed.”

“Oh! The municipality people will take care of it.”

“Yes. But I need us to bring it here so you can make clean leather sheets for me.”

“You know, son! Until twenty years ago the vultures used to ask me when they should come next.”

The hookah hummed.

“They don’t come anymore, so I don’t do it either.”

“Just do this last job for me and I’ll bring you a new hookah.”

Fangan Baba laughed, “All right, I’ll skin it for you.”

“Where should we keep the cow?”

“Where your grandfather used to.”

The hookah hummed.

“Do you remember the place or have you forgotten?” When the smoke of the local tobacco filtered through the hookah and filled his lungs, a deep, full sound came out.

“All right, Baba. Be there in half an hour. I’ll make the arrangements.”

I pulled the phone out of my pocket and said something—words that slipped out of my mouth but got lost in the bubbling of the hookah. And in Fangan Baba’s eyes, I saw my fading reflection. He drew in a long breath, and time seemed to freeze, as if the smoke itself had stopped in the air. Then a soft cloud of smoke slowly drifted out of his mouth and nostrils, and within that smoke, my fading reflection disappeared.

“Look! Careful! Careful!” I stretched out my hand helping to unload the cow’s carcass with three other boys.

Fangan Baba appeared, walking in from the village side. The cow’s dead body was placed to my right, the ground beneath it carefully cleared. I turned my gaze toward Fangan Baba. Leather slippers on his feet, a pajama above them, and a kurta falling to his knees. But the moment I saw his face, it didn’t look like Fangan Baba’s—it looked like my grandfather Ghurko. A stick lay balanced on his shoulder, tied with a rope, from which hung tools like a hammer and a sarauta. On his back was an old leather bag carrying a knife, a razor, a small spade, needles, rope, a small wooden board, packets of lime and alum, and other such things. On his head rested a small wooden box in which the sharpest tools were kept safe, and in his hand he carried an iron container for mixing water and lime-alum.

“Your grandfather had chosen the right piece of land for skinning the hide,” he said, moving the leaves and pebbles aside and tying one of the cow’s legs to the peg once fixed there by Ghurko Dada.

The sun had come out from behind the clouds. Fangan Baba opened his small chest, reached with his hand inside, and the reflection of the sunlight struck my eyes, making me squint slightly. For a moment, the sunlight dimmed and I felt a light ripple pass through the air.

“I knew one would come,” Fangan Baba said, without looking up, sprinkling droplets of water on the ground.

I slowly looked upward and saw a single vulture flying in the sky. The next moment, the shining knife was over the cow’s neck, gliding gently in, and Fangan Baba drew a straight cut all the way to the tail. A sharp smell reached my nose and I instantly turned away, then turned back again. When I looked, I saw the cow’s intestines, and in a fleeting moment from the past, I had an epiphany with the memory of my grandfather, Ghurko Ram.

It was the year 1973, just two years after Himachal Pradesh had been granted full statehood. At that time, there were fifty crore vultures in India, and the Chamars and vultures together served as recyclers and sanitation workers of the environment. The vultures would signal to Ghurko Baba, and he would arrive to remove the valuable hide, leaving the rest for them to devour and, in doing so, protect everyone from the spread of many diseases.

Fangan Baba made the next incisions near the legs and neck. Light raindrops began to fall, and the sound of jackals howling came from nearby. The cow’s skin had loosened from its face and body.
“Don’t be afraid! The jackals are getting married,” Fangan Baba said, lifting the skin with the tip of his knife, and I could see the flesh inside.

To understand the story of Ghurko Ram’s family, we go a little further back to the year 1950. Although it is said that Ghurko Ram came from a few kilometers away to Samaal village, at that time there was no “Upper Samaal.” There existed only the main Samaal village and Thalka (Lower) Samaal. Both were inhabited by Rajputs, and it was somewhere around then that this wandering Chamar, Ghurko, arrived with his two brothers, wife, sisters-in-law, and eight children about three years after India’s independence. He was unaware of the future population boom. To him, every child was an asset, a resource for keeping up with the ways of forced nomadic and untouchable lives.

Wandering was more of a compulsion than his nature, because one settles only where one owns land. And when there is no land, one remains a traveler with a moment here, another there. Every three or four years, they had to move from one place to another in search of work or livelihood. But perhaps even Ghurko Ram hadn’t imagined that Samaal village would become his final destination.

There was something truly singular about Ghurko Ram. A white turban on his head. A white kurta. A white pajama. Ankle bells tied to his hands and feet so everyone would know Ghurko Ram had arrived. Even the Rajputs kept him on, just as the Brahmins in the nearby Nangadwan village kept the Mahashe. The Mahashe or Dumne traditionally made bamboo baskets, played instruments, or worked as labourers. Working never quite suited the landlords. The Maheshes and Chamars didn’t own land, but they were exceptionally quick and skilled at their work.

Ghurko Ram earned some money by processing hides, while his five sons worked in the Rajputs’ fields and houses, and his three daughters helped their mother, Chinto Devi, manage the home. In return, every evening they would receive delicious thick bajra rotis sweet, soaked in ghee which made them forget the fatigue of the whole day. And on days when there was no work, they ate wheat chapatis with salt, or sometimes just managed with coal. Eating salt or coal was not a problem, but it could never match the taste of vegetables, lentils, or meat.

The hide had come off in one smooth pull and lay spread on the ground. Fangan Baba took a handful of salt, sprinkled it over the skin, and began to rub it thoroughly.
“You must’ve eaten a lot of this salt in childhood. A Chamar might go without bread, but salt never runs out in our homes,” Fangan Baba said as he dropped the hide into a bucket of lime-mixed water.
“In that case, Gandhi was the biggest Chamar of all, wasn’t he?” I asked, handing him the chillum packed with charas and tobacco.
“Why are you insulting Chamars like that? All right then, let me show you some magic.” And as soon as the sickle scraped across the hide, the hair started coming off as easily as the pride of a high-caste candidate watching a lower-caste man get a government job through reservation.

Whenever Ghurko Ram’s two elder sons, Byari and Charno went out for daily labor, the Rajputs of Samaal would sometimes follow them for four to five kilometers. And at times, they would even come up to their house just to make them stop on the way or step outside and make them touch their feet.

We are taught from childhood to touch the feet of elders as a sign of respect. But in this case, the Rajputs insisted on it not out of affection or custom but to assert that they were superior and the Chamars were lower, so they would not forget their place.

Perhaps when someone touched their feet, it filled them with a sense of superiority, a pleasure of its own kind. Just as liquor takes over our mind and changes us, the intoxication of superiority fills a person with a different kind of thrill. Because if someone follows another for four or five kilometers only for this reason, it can mean two things: either he has so much wealth that he has no need to work and can afford to waste his time proving his high status, or he has no other goal left in life.

“Bibi (Mother)! Tell Papa that Karnail Ji’s cow has died. It needs to be taken away,” said Ghurko’s third son, Prakash.
“You go with them today and learn how the hide is removed,” Chinto Devi said while blowing air into the stove.
“I know how to do it, Ma, but I have to go for a run. My army recruitment is coming up,” Prakash replied.
“No, you’ll go, and Pirthi (the fourth son) and Gaino (fifth son) will go with you,” said Ghurko Ram as he filled tobacco into his chillum.

The four of them were walking on the road. Ghurko Ram smoked his chillum leisurely, the leather bag hanging by his side. Prakash carried the stick, Gaino carried the box, and Pirthi held the bucket.

“Papa! Is it true that earlier our people were called by a bugle to pick up dead cows?” Prakash asked.
Ghurko looked at him and said, “Yes! Because they never entered our homes, and when we went to their houses to take away the dead cows, we had to carry a thorn bush on our shoulders so that our footprints would be erased; so no trace remained that our feet had ever been there.”
“But why was that?” Gaino asked.
“Hahaha…” The smoke from the chillum caught in Ghurko Ram’s throat. Coughing and laughing at the same time, tears filled his eyes.

Fangan Baba scraped the hide until not a single hair was left, and the entire skin turned into a white, membrane-like sheet.
“Come back after a few days. I’ll stretch it with ropes and dry it in the light sun and air at my house. Here, light it up one last time,” he said, handing me a matchbox.
I struck a match, and in its orange flame, I saw the mouth of his chillum and his eyes. I touched the burning matchstick to the chillum’s opening. He inhaled deeply, exhaled all the smoke through his nostrils, and walked away.

Time was passing in Samaal, and Chinto Devi, my grandmother, was pregnant again. It was 1961, and within a few months, another son was born. They named him Aanso. He was the first Chamar child born in Samaal, because all the others had come there with Ghurko Dada. Before long, he turned seven.

“When are you sending him to our fields? He should learn from his brothers,” asked Dawan, a Rajput shopkeeper from the same village.
“You tell me. When should he start going?” Ghurko asked, looking at Aanso.
“I want to go to school,” Aanso said shyly, glancing at his father.

For two minutes, there was silence as if someone had died. And perhaps, something had died. A Chamar child had just said something no one in Samaal had ever said before.
“Yes, of course. The school is just two steps away, isn’t it?” Dawan sneered.
“Let him study if he wants to,” replied Ghurko Dada.

Aanso began going to school, and soon his studies were often compared with that of Krishan, a Rajput boy known for his intelligence. Krishan usually topped the class, but once Aanso came first. Krishan’s father went to the school to ask how his son had been given fewer marks. The teachers explained that the results were based purely on performance. Each student was marked according to what they wrote. Krishan’s father couldn’t argue, but for the first time, there was a sense of unease, a Chamar boy had outperformed Rajput and Brahmin boys.

Beyond academics, school life was also about appearance. Students from nearby towns came wearing proper uniforms, and Aanso longed to look like them. In his kurta and pyjama, he stood out and standing out, in this case, wasn’t good. He tried to find a way, but asking his aging father didn’t feel right. Ghurko Ram might have stopped his schooling altogether over the expense. If he took up daily labor, he couldn’t continue school. Somewhere, the lack of money was eating away at Aanso; he couldn’t even afford a uniform.

On his way to school, there was a tailor’s shop where uniforms hung on display. Every day, he looked at them and imagined himself wearing one looking smart, admired by classmates, not pitied. He wanted those khaki pants more than anything. And one day, he got his chance.

The tailor had stepped out to fetch water. Aanso hesitated for a moment, then quickly slipped into the shop, grabbed the pants, and ran home. The next morning, when he woke up, he felt like a new person. He wore the khaki pants for the first time and went to school. The tailor found out, of course, and by evening, Aanso knew he would be beaten badly. But that day, he had turned a longing into achievement, and he didn’t regret it.

That evening, his elder brother Byari beat him harshly, but Aanso hardly felt it. What he felt was something else, an intoxication, stronger than the local tobacco. He had tasted a new world, one he could never step back from into labor again. That was when hides were put away and books opened so completely that he forgot everything else.

“He’ll go mad. He’s losing his mind,” Dawan would say, and Ghurko Ram would just laugh it off.

Gradually, though, the family began to dream of owning land and a home. How long could things go on like this? Such a large family needed security. Eventually, in a nearby village, Ghurko Ram and his sons occupied a piece of land that belonged to Jats. By then, their unity had made them feared in the surrounding villages. If anyone laid a hand on one of them, all eight brothers would arrive together.

The Jats then sought help from a Rajput in Samaal known for his black magic. He cast a spell on Aanso, since Aanso was doing something no one from the Chamar lineage had ever done before in Samaal. Soon, Aanso began suffering from stomach pain, and ironically, they started taking him to the same man for treatment. The sorcerer would place his hand on Aanso’s stomach and say, “Go, you’ll be fine.” But nothing changed. Gradually, Ghurko Ram and his sons realized he was the one behind the curse. They threatened him, and for his own safety, the sorcerer had to undo the spell.

Around that same time, in 1975, the government began distributing land titles. Because of this, Ghurko Ram and his five elder sons each received land, and they left their old, wild patch to build homes on their new, owned land. Laborers had become landowners, and the days of eating wheat chapatis with coal or salt were finally over.

That’s how Upper Samaal came into being, the third part of the village.
Aanso grew stronger and more aware. After completing his graduation, he became a Shastri teacher at a school and understood the power of the pen. Whenever people passed by, they would say, “Greetings Masterji.”

He wrote letters to the Chief Minister and the Prime Minister, getting electricity, water, and roads restored in the village, and began bringing every small and big issue of the community to the government’s attention. Although the people of his own caste in the village respected him, the reason behind it was more self-interest than gratitude. Many of the works for which he deserved recognition were never openly credited to him. The main reason seemed to be that if something wasn’t done by an upper-caste person, it was better left unacknowledged.

But Aanso never sought credit for any of it, because his purpose was to bring real change, not to be praised for it.

Eventually, like everyone else, he too got married, and with time had two children. As the wheel of time turned, Aanso and Leelo’s son, Manu, and daughter, Tanu, came into this world. They were growing up, and it was the year 2000.

“Listen, there’s a dhaam (feast) at Lal Uncle’s house this evening,” Leelo told Manu.
“Okay, Mummi.”

“Come on, hurry up, or we’ll be late,” shouted Beenu from outside.
“Yes, coming,” Manu replied, quickly picking up an empty box for lentils and a towel.

Beenu was Gaino Tau’s younger son and Manu’s closest friend in the village. The two of them, along with their cousins and uncles’ sons, went to Lal Uncle’s house for the dhaam. Everyone else was sitting inside, eating their food on the floor. These boys, however, sat separately, outside behind the house because no Dalit was allowed to eat together with the others at the same dhaam.

After a while, the servers came and poured rice into their towels and lentils into their small containers. The boys, still happy and laughing, took their food and walked home together.

Time moved on. It was now 2025. Manu and Tanu had grown up. Tanu had become a college professor after studying in another state, and Manu had become a small entrepreneur and storyteller. When they came back and saw everyone sitting and eating together, they finally understood what it had meant, carrying rice in a towel and lentils in a tin, and not being allowed to eat inside.

Even now, on Vishwakarma Day, the dhaams of Chamars, Rajputs, and Brahmins are still held separately.

There were good people on both sides, but the difference though invisible still existed in thought. The upper-caste people no longer said such things aloud, but a quiet heaviness, a restrained anger, could still be felt. You could sense it in the lack of inclusion with everyone minding their own business, no one trying to build connection or togetherness. Perhaps this unspoken resentment among upper castes is part of an ongoing change or maybe just a deep breath before another fire; only time will tell.

The power of education had earned the family a place in the world, but in the eyes of those around them, Ghurko Ram’s family was still a Chamar family. Even the unity that once held the Chamars of Upper Samaal together had slowly faded over time. Now the Chamars of the village were so divided among themselves that it seemed as if casteism had begun living inside them too. Perhaps this mindset, this fragmented thought has seeped so deep into Indians that it has become part of our DNA. Maybe we were never truly one and perhaps we never will be. And maybe that itself is the true face of our nation.

“Today’s program was called ‘What’s bigger? System or hard work- Let’s Find Out!’ So tell me, how did you all like it?” Manu asked the school children at the end of the session.
“It was really good!” all the children shouted together.

Manu was conducting the program as part of his storytelling fellowship, along with Anita and Anita’s sister, Rekha. About thirty children from classes six to eight had participated and one of them was the son of a relative.

“Bye, sir! Bye, ma’am!” the children waved as we were leaving.
“We really liked it! You’re all so nice. We’ll play with you again next time!” said one of the girls.

“Why are you praising them so much? They’re Chamars too, just like me,” the relative’s son shouted loudly.

Having never received appreciation himself, his own sense of inadequacy made it impossible for him to tolerate praise for any other Chamar.

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The evening sun had come out. The clouds were still light and scattered, but Samaal’s sunset was, as always, beautiful.

“Fangan Baba! Is it ready?”

“I’m just finishing it. I had ground it well for three or four days and kept it pressed under the stones. Just yesterday, I leveled it and rubbed it with oil on a smooth stone. Come, let’s see. But what will you write with?” Fangan Baba said, handing me the sheet of leather paper.

I took out a peacock feather and an inkpot from my bag and wrote on the first page.

I turned around and saw Fangan Baba slowly fading into smoke. Within that smoke appeared his old slate-roofed house. He was young, smoking his chillum. Nearby, his wife was blowing into the stove, and the children were playing.

“Ghurko! Hey Ghurko!”
“Yes, Papa!”
“Run and bring a piece of coal from your mother’s stove.”
“Yes, Papa.”

Ghurko Ram brought a fine piece of coal from the hearth. Fangan Baba placed it in his chillum and took a deep puff. At that very moment, the sound of a bugle echoed.

“Come, son! It’s time. A Brahmin’s cow has died.”
Fangan Baba picked up his tools and started walking toward the sound of the bugle.

After walking a little ahead, he turned back and looked at me. A tear fell from my eye and dropped onto my book. A faint smile appeared on his face, and then he turned forward and walked on.