The second chapter starts as thrilling as the last ended: Balram's father Vikram is very ill and he takes him with his brother Kisham to a hospital. The conditions in this hospital are very bad, e.g. people have to sit on the floor and patients with different diseases sit in one room together. A men tell's him the reason theres no doctor in this hospital: Usually there's a doctor once a day, but because of corruption there's often no doctor like this day. His father died of tuberculosis finally.
Kishan married after the cremation and because he was the boy, they got dowries this time and screwed another family. Only two weeks after the wedding, Balram, Kishan and a cousin are packed off to Dhanbad (marked as A in the map below) to work in a tea shop.
Balram doesn't like the work and because he hears there's more money to earn as a driver, he wants to make a drivers license. The man he asks, doesn't want to teach him driving because he hasn't got the correct religion and cast rank, but with giving him a little more money convinces him. After Munna attained the driving license, he goes from door to door asking for a job and finally after 2 weeks he found a man letting him in. He was asked, which rank in the cast system he has and he answers the truth: "Bottom, sir.". He had luck, the man gives him the job regardless.
His new employer was the Stork (Yes, one of the landlords of his hometown) and his two sons, Mukesh Sir and Mr. Ashok.
The narrator describes the cast system (graphic above and link at the bottom) as an ordely zoo, everyone in his place, everyone happy. But when Britsh left India in 1947, the cages was opened and the jungle law replaced zoo law. That meant for his family, they lost their work as sweet-makers (Halwai = "sweet-maker") and became rickshaw-pullers which meant they became poorer.
Balram sleeps in one room with the number one driver named Ram Persad, and has to sleep on the floor while Ram Persad sleeps in a bed. Both have not only to work as a driver, but also as a servant for the family. E.g. Balram has to clean their dogs, massage the Stork's feet and play cricket with Mukesh Sir's son. The family has two cars, a noble one and a cheaper one, the second one has Balram to drive.
As Mr. Ashok wants to visit Laxmangarh (his birthplace), Balram shall drive him whith the noble car. He visits his family, but when his grandmother Kusum plans to make him marry, he left home and went up to a Fort, frow where he has a look all over the town. At this place he vomits and faints the second time.
He never visits his home again.
My opinion:
In the situation standing at the fort, Balram faints the second time. I think he does so, because he realizes in this situtation, how lucky he must be escaping from this town. His situation turned from extreme poverty at home to a very noble situation at the landlords building.
Links:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_System_in_India (about the cast system in India)
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