"This is my wife, Himani." Lao Dong introduced Fang Ze, "She doesn't speak Chinese very well. There's no problem with English."
As soon as Lao Dong finished speaking, Himani said hello to Fang Ze in broken Chinese, and then said a lot of welcome words in English.
When Fang Ze heard Himani's English, he continued to pretend that his English level was only that of a high school student, and answered a few words awkwardly.
Old Dong walked over and said a few words to Himani, then asked Himani to retreat first. Then he took Fang Ze to the study room upstairs.
"You've already gotten married here." Fang Ze said to Old Dong, "It seems like you don't plan to return to China?"
"When I was young, I was poor and had no choice but to come here to make a living. Now I'm used to living there, so if nothing else, I probably don't plan to go back."
There was a wedding photo of him and Himani on Lao Dong’s desk. Lao Dong said to Fang Ze quite proudly, “My wife’s family is a large high-caste family in India. When she and I got married, India was The deputy prime ministers all called to congratulate him.”
"Oh." Fang Ze was a little interested after hearing what Lao Dong said. He asked, "Isn't there a caste system in India? What kind of caste are we foreigners in India?"
"You can still be considered a Kshatriya if you can." Lao Dong took out a cigarette and tried to give one to Fang Ze. After Fang Ze waved his hand to refuse, he started smoking himself, "We Chinese people are in the eyes of Indians. They are considered to be run-down nobles, so their status is pretty good. Of course, Europeans and Americans are higher. But this is only useful for men. As a woman, no matter how noble you are in India, you still have to be extremely careful when going out. Some Indians are in love, but Regardless of caste, sometimes even species is not a problem in their eyes.”
"Uh." Fang Ze recalled the news about the relationship between Indians and animals, and nodded in agreement with Lao Dong's words.
"I have always heard that the caste problem in India is very serious. How is the situation in Delhi? Are your Indian servants the legendary untouchables?"
"No, no, no, although my servants are paid a small part of their salary every month, they are just low-caste Indians, not untouchables." Old Dong blew out smoke rings and said to Fang Ze, "Indian The caste system is very complex and cannot be interpreted in the literal sense of 'Brahmin', 'Kshatriya', 'Vaishya' or 'Sudra'."
"People in our country may, due to historical reasons, understand this hierarchical system as the difference between classes, the difference between nobles and commoners, or it may be equivalent to what the Mongols did during the Yuan Dynasty. But in fact, it is not the case. In terms of racial classification, the Indian caste system is much more vicious."
"Let me answer your question first." Old Dong said, "Those people who work as servants in our family belong to Shudras according to their castes. They are just low castes, not untouchables. In India, the real untouchables do not have their own Castes, they do the dirtiest and hardest work, and are required not to appear in public places. Except when working and getting paid, if an untouchable wants to come into contact with people from other castes, they will be beaten to death. Because They represent the unknown, you see.”
"Understood." Fang Ze felt a chill down his back when he heard Old Dong's words.
"I talked about caste division before. The four castes in India have derived a total of more than 10,000 sub-castes. The divisions between these sub-castes are also very confusing. For example, my wife's surname is Kshatriya in Delhi, but in other Some states in the country can be counted as Brahmins. Some are counted as Kshatriya castes in Delhi, but in other states they are also counted as low castes such as Vaishyas."
"So it is actually very difficult to judge class just from your surname. In India, your caste does not represent your nobility. What truly represents your nobility is your job."
"Work?" Fang Ze didn't understand.
"Yes, because the caste system was established very early, so for thousands of years, various caste families in India have tried to move closer to the upper castes and try to despise other castes. This has been going on for thousands of years, let alone us, even in India People themselves can’t understand it.”
"However, the real purpose of caste classification in India is not to distinguish classes, but to distinguish jobs. For example, in India, God is supreme, so Brahman is the spokesperson of God, responsible for communicating with God, and the boss of the family.
The Kshatriya is responsible for managing family affairs and is considered the second child. The Vaishya, who is responsible for earning money to support the family, is the third child, and the fourth child, Sudra, does the housework of cleaning. These are all considered family members. For some dirty jobs, such as emptying toilets and digging sewers, outsiders have to be hired. This outsider is a pariah, also known as an untouchable. "
Lao Dong smoked a cigarette and spoke in a relaxed tone, but his words were not relaxed. "Untouchables are not considered family members in India, so you can sometimes see an Indian who loves small animals very much. He is very They are caring and good people, but when faced with untouchable people, they will not treat them as human beings."
"My company used to hire an untouchable person as a coolie. One day he didn't come, and I didn't care. It was a long time later that his father came over and told me that he was caught because he took a shortcut and climbed over the wall of a rich man's house. Then he was beaten to death. And his father didn’t even try to call the police. This is the status of untouchables in India.”
"Didn't anyone try to resist?" Fang Ze was a little dumbfounded. After all, no matter how much he knew, he only understood caste in India from writing. Now in India, he heard this from a compatriot who had lived in India for many years. It feels a little scary inexplicably.
"Don't think that resisting oppression is an easy thing. In our country, many people have been killed by a simple match, and the poison is still there to this day. The situation in India is more complicated. I told you before that there are more than 10,000 of them. Derived castes, these castes actually represent jobs. For example, the same Shudras drive motorcycles and ride tricycles to pick up passengers in India. However, the two waves of people who drive motorcycles and ride tricycles are not a subcaste. They despise each other and refuse to contact each other. If you are not from the caste that drives a motorcycle, you cannot drive a motorcycle, otherwise others will drive you away. Because their union is also controlled by this caste."
"So the most complicated situation in India is that not only do the upper castes despise the lower castes, but castes of the same level also despise each other. If you are a farmer, you can only farm in this life and cannot weave, because you It's not the weaver's caste. If you're a cake maker, you can't make flying cakes. It's all because of caste. Moreover, caste will be with you throughout your life. Even if you change your surname, your job will reveal that you are in a caste. Which level of society. Even if you change to another religion, your caste will remain unchanged. Any religion must obey the caste system in India. They discriminate and hate each other. There are more than 10,000 sub-castes, religions, occupations, regions, The ethnic groups are entangled with each other, they dislike each other, and they refuse to intermarry. The people at the top can only communicate in English, and the people at the bottom may not understand each other's language."
"In this situation, we can only rely on time to slowly pass away. The same thing we did before will not work here, because there are no landlords here, only castes that despise each other. When the time comes, we don't know who to fight." Old Dong As he spoke, he stuck his cigarette butt in the ashtray, "There is a self-deprecating saying from Indians that can explain all this, 'In India, no one will make the mistake of letting others have dreams.'"
"Let's talk about the news you have about the disappearance of Lao Sha's people." Fang Ze felt inexplicably heavy after listening to Lao Dong's words. He skipped the topic and asked about business matters.
"Except for a girl, the people sent to India by Brother Sha this time are two men, one named Feng Zhongjie and the other Huang Sheng. I am very familiar with Feng Zhongjie. I have been to Delhi several times. He said that he used to be a special forces soldier. The physique is indeed good. It’s no problem if one person can fight five or six times.”
Lao Dong said, taking a book from the side, and then pulled out a photo from the book. "This is Feng Zhongjie's photo."
Fang Ze took the photo and looked at it. The man in the photo was about twenty-five years old. He had a haircut and looked very muscular.
"In other words, in fact, the missing three people did not have any news for such a long time because they met some local gangsters."
"Yes." Lao Dong nodded and said, "Indian gangsters also bully and bully women, so that they don't have the guts to rob on the road, because if they are caught, they will be beaten to death directly. That's why the three people disappeared this time That’s why they were so alarmed because they suddenly had no news, couldn’t get through on the phone, and didn’t explain it in advance.”
"And later we sent people to track Feng Zhongjie's mobile phone signal, and found that the three people's mobile phone signals also disappeared on the day they disappeared. We searched for people at the location, but did not find the mobile phone."
"The phone card must have been pulled out." Fang Ze thought for a moment and then asked, "Then do you know where they last went?"
"They didn't tell me when they left, but we asked the driver of the taxi they took when they went out and found out that they got off near the Delhi Metro station. There was a slum nearby. You know, the most troublesome thing about slums is that, You don’t know who is telling the truth and who is telling lies.”
"Aren't they here to buy new medicine? Why do they go to the slums?" Fang Ze then asked.
"This is also where I am confused. Because they asked me to prepare a lot of ice cubes in advance this time. My original plan was to get the medicine, put it in the refrigerator and keep it warm with ice cubes, and then leave Delhi directly to return home. But they didn’t bring ice cubes with them when they went out, which means they didn’t go to get medicine.”
There are too many doubts.
Fang Ze leaned weakly on the chair.
(End of chapter)