My first "Caste" Moment: Was Strange then.. Is still strange to me.

I must have been either in Class VIII or IX. Today i don't exactly remember the month or year..but i remember the exact setting when this happened:
That was the time when we as children were not really bothered about the dress that we wore, or the messages in the mobile phone inbox, or the new video games being launched in the market. Of course, Cable TV was there, but not that important. And, we were not exposed to the crimes, scandals or fraud cases that have covered the entire news media today.

It was a bright sunny day, sunlight entered the classroom from the glass windows, we sat on our wooden benches with our School diaries in our hands. The previous day we had been asked by our class teacher to get in written from our parents, what "Caste" we belonged to. Strange... what is a caste, anyway??!! We were not familiar to that concept then. Anyways, we had that in written, in our school diaries, And today that was the prime topic , no, the only topic of discussion.

I had "General Caste" written in my diary. I hated it! One of my dear friends came upto me to show her diary. She had "General" on her Diary page too. "So, there are more general people out there", i thought and was relieved. One classmate had "SC" written.. meaningless, no???!!!! How can any one guess what SC meant without any note or hint given. Somebody had :"Scheduled Caste" written.. Wow, that's special..Scheduled.. sounds so unique and important. I felt soooo general & common & unimportant! Again my "general" friend came rushing to me, giggling, mocking.. said she," do you know she is an OBC??!!" OK.. what's OBC now???!! @#$## grrh
"hey, she is an Other Backward Caste", came the answer.

Chhih..how can you call someone "backward" on her face??!! And tag her like that too??!! That is such a backward thing to do...!!!!!!!!!! Moreover she is so fair, & beautiful, & smart, dresses up nicely. How on earth is she backward?


I never understood this.