Namma Sampradhayam

Abhistoo!

Long time ago, my cousin and I were sitting at a restaurant with two of our relatives. We chatted and giggled amongst ourselves for a while before tuning into the conversation taking place in front of us. Just then the ever popular topic of marriage had cropped up and we perked up our ears at the very sound of the word. We both had boyfriends then (my cousin was dating someone who was not Tamilian or Brahmin) and we were not enjoying contemplating the different reactions we might have received if we had told our parents about it. We did come up with a few plausible reactions though:

 Reaction 1: ‘They won’t get along with our family. Period. Ellarun enna cholluva?’ (voice quivering).

If you ever want to become a lawyer, I can assure you that this is one argument you cannot win, however hard you try. If you take the defensive ‘Why won’t they suit us?’, you will be thrown an icy glare followed by a long lecture on food habits, vegetarianism, respect, dignity, culture, clothes, behaviour and what not. And if you try arguing with each of those -‘No, but the guy I like IS vegetarian, religious and is perfectly dignified and respectable, thank you very much!’, they will retort  ‘How dare you argue with me? You’re too young. Kids these days know nothing at all’. It won’t stop there. There will some other general points thrown in about this generation being spoilt and ignorant, how they do not care about anybody and how love marriages have resulted in divorces. Now that’s another interesting point. While your parents pick out all the worst cases in history to illustrate their point about love marriages (‘Do you know this friend of mine in office? Her sister’s son married this Gujarati girl and everything was fine until they got married. The girl then showed her true colours’, they’ll declare triumphantly. Or ‘Do you not know what happened with that boy whose parents were distraught when he announced that he was in love with a Japanese girl? Flushed and yet intrigued you’ll ask- ‘What?’ ‘The girl ran away with her childhood sweetheart’). You can come up with a few cases of arranged marriages not working out and they will again shoot you down with: ‘You only pick up cases that suit you. The chances of a marriage working are higher when the parents choose’. And if you say that universally that’s what people do during an arguement, i.e. pick up cases that prove their point, they will adopt the emotional route and plunge down that route in all gusto until you feel miserable. 

Reaction 2: ‘How on earth did you think that would be suitable?!’

Refer to the above argument. They all follow the same lines eventually.

Reaction 3: ‘Break up with him right now!’

THE threat. Threat because what followed would make you feel like you had proposed to marry Osama Bin Laden’s 40^th son. The threat need not always be overt, the subtle threats are the worst. Trust me.

Reaction 4:  ‘Abhistoo!!’

Honestly, I’ve not heard too many people saying that these days but that one word conveys all the disbelief and horror that they experience at that particular moment. Oh, well I just threw that in for good measure.

Entry of the ubiquitous Mylapore maami:

If the matter had passed on to some bored maami complete with the bright kancheevaram saree and mukkuthi  sitting at a wedding, eager to hear any gossip about her brother’s children or her grandfather’s brother’s great grandchildren , the maami would have had a mild/ not-so-mild/intense heart attack on hearing about this. (The degrees of heart attack depend of course on which caste/community the boy belongs to). Slowly a group of maamis will gather together to discuss this preposterous idea and tear the boy, his family and the community apart. Are you wondering why people hate Brahmins? :P Please do note: We love ourselves very much and yes, we do think we’re God’s gift to mankind. Atleast 80% of the community still thinks so. The younger generation however, more often than not, do not give a damn.

THE BOY:

 Anyway, we, i.e.my cousin and I (in case my tangential flow of thought distracted you) had decided to keep our secrets to ourselves and wait for the elders to solemnly give us strict instructions on whom to fall in love with. Tam-Brahms are brilliant at that, by the way. They probably have a rule book tucked away somewhere that gives you a twelve point bulleted table on ‘How to find the Right Brahmin Boy’. He is THE BOY. Now a little needs to be said about THE BOY. He will have to be well-educated (and by that I mean have a PhD from an Ivy League or be earning enough to be the next Ambani of the State. No less.) He will have to be from a ‘good’ family ( someone please tell me who marries people from ‘bad’ families?) THE BOY will have to be of ‘good build’, fair and tall (with the average weight, height and complexion all specified, mind you. For example: 5 ‘9’ is a strict no-no but 5 ‘10’ might be passable.) He will have to be a ‘nice, chammathu piyan’ and not have any ‘bad habits’ (read: no smoking or drinking. Drugs and pre marital sex are not mentioned here as they are akin to incest, murder or homicide.) You will find 80% of this lot sitting in the US pursuing some computer-related job in a large company and having several other interests. Tam- Brahms are known to be very competitive so this guy would probably have won a Spelling Bee contest, a badminton championship, a shloka competition, a music competition, be a part of the State basketball team... the list will be endless and can give anyone an inferiority complex. Or it can make them plain suspicious about his superman-like qualities. The girls will be no less qualified, I can assure you. She will be THE GIRL- sweet and mild natured, pretty, fair, slim, name followed by 5 degrees from Ivy Leagues too, a Bharatanatyam dancer or Carnatic singer and a good cook. THE BOY and THE GIRL will then get married and produce THE CHILDREN. They will be brought up in the US but recite verses from the Bhagvad Gita as monotonously as other children recite Robert Frost or Wordsworth, speak heavily accented Tamil that only they can understand and later go to Ivy Leagues too. And so on and so forth...

Liberal-aa?

Anyway, I’m digressing a lot. I was speaking about my two relatives. The two of them were having a conversation about how liberal they were. We were overjoyed on hearing that word- ‘LIBERAL, did you say’? The first aunt said that she was okay with her daughter marrying an Indian, that was after all the most important criterion. ‘Hey, that’s not bad’, we thought! We were quite impressed. We exchanged pleased looks before the second interjected and said ‘Indian but has to be Hindu, of course’. That didn’t surprise us much. Christians and Muslims are considered beings from another planet when it comes to marriage anyway. And this means that we could date about 80% of the population? Not that we would but one always likes to have the option. The first aunt then said ‘But he has to be South Indian. These North Indians are not trustworthy and are terribly patriarchal’.  Now that erases our chance with more than 3/4^th of the population, we thought. But still... not too bad, that’s a lot of people to choose from. The second decided to be even more specific now- ‘Indian, Hindu, South Indian and Tamilian’, she declared. The first aunt applauded her ‘liberal outlook’ and added ‘But he has to be Brahmin, illaya? Illata seri varathu’. The second aunt looked shocked. ‘Of course!’ she said as though it were the most obvious given in the whole world. My cousin and I looked at them quizzically. ‘How did you start this conversation again?’, we asked sarcastically. They both laughed too and said ‘But we’re alright with him being either an Iyer or Iyengar’. ‘See? We’re very liberal’.

Bitter sweet symphony   

This is not to say that Brahmins are not liberal. If you ever bring up that topic with them, they’ll tell you about a hundred things that they let you do that others may not allow. (North Indian men do not allow the women to work, we give education so much importance! Women cannot  talk back to their husbands, have you ever seen a submissive Brahmin woman?, etc.) Of course it’s all relative and therefore a lot of it is true so you can’t really disagree. However, when it comes to marriage and choosing a partner, few are willing to be more acceptable of inter-caste marriages. The poor person whom you’re arguing for could be the sixth avatar of Lord Vishnu but he won’t be good enough. He might have a mole on his cheek that will be reason enough to reject him, it’s true. We’re an endogamous, proud lot who carry the baggage of our ancestors on our shoulders and worship their beliefs even if we don’t entirely know what they are or where they came from! We chant mantras in languages we do not understand and follow rituals whose meanings we have long forgotten but we believe that it is good for us. Reason does not exist in our dictionary, it was long defeated by beliefs made stronger with generations. You can study philosophy or sociology to broaden your outlook and question such ethnocentric beliefs but you just cannot win. Or rather you can win but it’ll be a bitter sweet symphony.