Caste in India: The Facts and the System c6.s6.2

c6.s6.2

It is natural enough that persons forbidden to eat in common should also be forbidden to smoke together out of the same *hukka*. It is natural also that this prohibition should not be put on the same plane as the first. It happens then that intercourse is avoided in both cases with regard to the same castes or sub-castes; on the other hand, tolerance is more frequent in the second case than in the first. The use of the same bowl, if it is made of metal, is, for instance, considered permissible provided that there are two pipe-stems. But there exists a very lively fear of this pollution: in certain regions in order to avoid awkward confusions, pipes, since they are often left in fields or in places of assembly, have some mark of identification on the stem—a blue rag for a Muslim, red for a Hindu, a bit of leather for a Chamar, a cord for a sweeper, etc.¹ It is evident that this care is observed everywhere; it is kept up even among the castes who might have escaped it by their common debasement.