Chokhamela: The Outcast Who Found His Way Into The Hearts of Many

This is a part of an ongoing series on ‘Lesser-known Indian poets’. A link to his book can be found at the end of the piece.

‘Why have you thrown

this challenge god?

Solve this riddle of mine;

enter my shoes, know

in your own self’

Chokhamela was one of the first Dalit poets in India and was a part of the Bhakti movement. He was by birth a mahar, a remover of dead animals from the town. His status as an untouchable required him to live on the outskirts of Mangalvedha, in a settlement assigned to those at the bottom of the caste-ladder. Legend has it that when Chokhamela went on a traditional religious journey to Pandharpur, he heard the guru Namdev singing abhangs (a form of devotional poetry) in a kirtan and was so overcome with love for Vithoba (a Hindu god considered a manifestation of Vishnu or his avatar Krishna) that he pledged himself as one of Namdev’s students. Though Namdev got access for Chokhamela to the outer grounds of Vithoba’s temple, the upper class Brahmin priests refused to let him enter the gates of the temple. Here too, he was excluded from not only certain geographical areas but also religious ceremonies due to his lower caste. In one of his verses he wrote -

‘The sugarcane is crooked

but not it’s juice.

The bow is curved,

not the arrow.

The river is bent,

but not its water.

Chokha is twisted

not his faith.

Why are you drawn

to the shape of a thing.’

Chokha died when a section of the fort wall being built by him along with other mahar workers collapsed, suffocating several of them. According to one tale, Namdev, upon hearing of his student’s death rushed to the location to try and locate his remains. Despite the rubble and tangle of bodies, he managed to locate Chokha’s bones and heard the bones whispering ‘Vitthal, Vitthal’ (Another name for Vithoba), Namdev transported the remains back to Pandharpur and buried the remains outside the main temple gates - at the same spot Chokha used to stand in worship. There is a shrine at the very same spot today, standing as a marker of his devotion.

When BR Ambedkar visited the temple, he wished to visit Chokha’s burial site and was denied entry into the main premises because he himself was a mahar. He later dedicated his book ‘The Untouchables: Who Are They and Why They Became Untouchables’ to the memory of Chokhamahar, along with two others. Chokhamela of his own life wrote -

At my wits end

Now that the end

is here;

my life was spent in paying for

the past

His low social stature and exclusion from society made the strength he displayed in his life and his lines both touching and inspirational.

Buy One Hundred Poems of Chokha Mela (Paperback | Createspace Independent Publishers) here