Zombie, Marathi Book : A True Story of a Person Who Faced So many Obstacles to Pursue Education

Zombie, Marathi Book : A True Story of a Person Who Faced So many Obstacles to Pursue Education

Dr. Anand Ratan Yadav (original surname Zakate), from field cultivation Maratha Community, refused to adopt patriarchal tradition from his father Ratanappa who used to think that the practicing patriarchy was the richest culture of his community. According to his father, farming was their traditional business and it was prestigious for everyone in the family to follow it. For this, he used to say that he was following the Varna or Caste system which was prescribed as farmer’s son should be farmer and did not do any business. Thus, no one in the family had ever learnt and thought to learn.  Therefore, he used to discourage his son’s interest in education and used to force him to join the gym and do exercise to become a farmer. Similarly, he used to think that there was no need to educate his daughters as they are going to be good wives to somebody else. In such a situation, Anand Yadav wanted to learn and become an academician rather than a farmer; but his father refused to send him to school. Still Anand completed his education and became an academician by overcoming all hurdles of his ways. He narrated his entire struggle through his autobiographical novels. He has written his autobiography into four parts. First part is Zombie means struggles, second part is Nangarni means cultivation of soil, third is Gharabhinti means house walls and fourth is Kachawel means vine of pieces of Glass.  Zombie is a detailed story of Anand Ratan Zakate which narrates his school education journey Montessori till his Matriculation.

From: Yogesh Gogwekar

Zombie is an autobiographical novel of Dr. Anand Yadav which gives the details of his spectacular and challenging school journey for completing his education till matric by overcoming adversity. Zombie Means fight against all odds. Literally, it means wrestling or fighting and Anand’s fight was against his father who is against his school education, his loving and hardworking mother and unaffordable farming. This novel revolves around Kagal, a village in Kolhapur and Kolhapur city. Language used in this novel is completely rural.  He started the novel by describing the economic prosperity of ancestors. He said that his ancestors came from Karnataka state and settled in Kagal in Kolhapur district in Maharashtra.  His ancestors did the business of collecting revenue in the cattle market and income generated from this had been invested in farming to generate further income. His father continued the same and to show his economic status, he built an expensive house in Kagal. He acquired the money and became a big money lender in Kagal but refused to spend on the education of his son.

Before the birth of Anand, his father Ratanappa and his wife Tarabai were having two daughters. Therefore, they worshipped Jotiba for a male child and God blessed them with male child on 30^th November 1935. At the time of growing up in Kagal, Anand saw that Brahmin’s boys were going to schools to get education and he was very much inspired towards their education. Therefore,  he wanted to go to school and learn;  but his father was not interested in allowing him to go to school as it was against his traditional business. His relatives also agreed with his father and asked Anand to take interest in cultivation of crops.  After seeing no chance of getting education, Anand ran away from his house and went to Kolhapur in order to pursue his education. His father brought him back. His father thought that his son was blessed by god after two daughters, therefore, allowed him to go to school and learn up to four standards, so that he would gain some knowledge for daily requirements.

In school,  he saw the Brahmin students ironing dresses and the sweet fragrance of soap because they used to bathe with such types of soaps. Subsequently, he started feeling inferiority complex for his dirty dresses. He said that he used to get up early in the morning to work on the farm and he had no inner wear but only a shirt to absorb all perspiration and his body and dress used to smell very badly. Therefore, he started sitting separately and also never used to speak with them because of purity in their language as the tone of his language was rustic. For that, he practiced to speak pure language and very soon he started speaking in pure language. He started showing his intelligence in his studies and became a favorite student of his teachers. After completing fourth standard, his father stopped him from going to school and asked him to work on a farm. His teacher who was in-charge of his class came to know that Anand had been stopped from going to school. Therefore, with two other colleagues, he visited Anand's house and tried to convince his father to send his son to school. Ratanappa did not agree with them and informed them that there were no benefits of education for his children and also told them that his children had been born to do the cultivation of crops. In spite of this Anand decided to go to school and complete his education till matric.

After fighting with all hurdles from his father and community, he had managed to complete his education till matriculation. When he was in matric, he had to pay the examination fees. His father did not give him the money. Therefore, he along with his mother went to the house of his teacher Dharmadhikari and requested him to pay the examination fees of Rs.35/-. His teacher agreed to pay his fees provided his mother should supply  the milk for three months to compensate the fee amount. It was also difficult for his mother to supply the milk in such condition. After the continuous request, he agreed to pay his fees on fresh condition. He told him that your mother should supply a liter of milk to him on a daily basis by charging six annas per liter. That time Milk was cost to Rs.11/- per liter. She agreed for this by saying that she would not give the milk to drink to her children for three months but pay the fees for my son.

Dr. Anand Yadav has also mentioned the way he had been insulted by some teachers in school due to their biased attitude. One teacher named Akolkar who always used to punish and insult him regularly and to force him to bring the fees. Akolkar used to provide freeships to other community students and never used to extend the same to Anand even though he was better in the studies than the students of other communities. During the school education Anand Yadav visited the library for books. He started reading the biographies of Gokhale, Agarkar, Swami Vivekananda, Sane Guruji and many others. He was impressed about their works and he decided to complete the education at any cost. While reading the biography of Gopal Ganesh Agarkar, he felt that he was poorer than Agarkar because Agarkar used to wash only one shirt every day to wear it again on the next day; but Anand was not having one shirt and no soap to wash it and there was no one to encourage him to learn.

Thus, Anand Yadav decided to live an educated life and strongly felt that his community people could not receive high economic status in society because they did not complete their education and traditionally struck with agricultural work. Even after having large agricultural land, they are not earning regular income because they are not educated.

I have read Zombie in 1990 and recently I read it again and this time also my experience was fantastic. This book is nothing but a story of hardship of life and unending struggle which provokes us to rethink traditions in Hindu religious system. It is a story of a writer who completed his secondary education under difficult conditions and later on completing his education till PhD & becomes one of the great writers. This book has been forwarded by well-known a multifaceted personality, humorist and Marathi writer P L Deshpande.

P L Deshpande, a multifaceted personality, had helped financially to many social institutions to carry their important work in literature, music, theatre, Education & many other fields. Anand Zakate met P L Deshpande and Sunita Deshpande in Ratnagiri and after seeing his efforts to learn, they decided to help him financially to complete his education. We must thank P L Deshpande and his wife Sunita Deshpande for developing such a great writer in the Literature world of Marathi.  His original name was Anand Ratan Zakate and P L Deshpande changed to Anand Ratan Yadav & this name is known very well in Marathi Literature world.  To know this, one must read second part of biography of Anand Yadav i.e. Nangarni means cultivation of soil.

Zombie is the best book to read which gives inspiration to do the work even in adverse situations. Do not miss to read.

Mumbai

10/10/2020