• This forum contains old posts that have been closed. New threads and replies may not be made here. Please navigate to the relevant forum to create a new thread or post a reply.
  • Welcome to Tamil Brahmins forums.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our Free Brahmin Community you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.

avoiding our roots...

Status
Not open for further replies.
Roots and Stem

This thread started with roots and chained into a lot of things like culture etc.

Could someone define TB culture please? I know it sounds complicated but possible. As regards following TB culture in US, I think the climatic conditions and the lifestyle in US would play an impeding role and hinder the TBs from sustaining their culture.

To broaden a little, the Brahmin community is the only one existing in all languages in India and much of the practices are common among the different liguistic groups. I trust investigation into this fact with some depth will reveal the common roots of all the different linguistic groups in Brahmins.

Amazingly the Brahmins have some elements common to the Levites, one of the 12 tribes (gothras) of the Israeli Jews.
 
Last edited:
This thread started with roots and chained into a lot of things like culture etc.

Could someone define TB culture please? I know it sounds complicated but possible. As regards following TB culture in US, I think the climatic conditions and the lifestyle in US would play an impeding role and hinder the TBs from sustaining their culture.

To broaden a little, the Brahmin community is the only one existing in all languages in India and much of the practices are common among the different liguistic groups. I trust investigation into this fact with some depth will reveal the common roots of all the different linguistic groups in Brahmins.

Amazingly the Brahmins have some elements common to the Levites, one of the 12 tribes (gothras) of the Israeli Jews.

nagesh,

you have asked a lot of queries from this group, being a new member.

as a courtesy, perhaps, you might want to introduce yourself in a little more detail and where you are coming from, re the nature of your queries.

as discussed in our private message, you do have a bias for the bible, which is perfectly ok.

i don't think the average member here, may be as familiar as you are with the 12 tribes of judea or the similarities between levites or cohons to the iyers or the iyengars.

also, perhaps, you might want to explain where you stand re bridging the values between the philosophies of hinduism with that of abraham.

i am quite sure you would appreciate my request, particularly in the context of your note to me re your appreciation of the bible, and the noted absence of any acknowledgement to the values of any hindu scriptures.

this query is also meant to verify that you do accept the guidelines of this forum, and you would refrain from quotes and references towards hurting the sentiments of this group.

thank you.
 
This came sometime back in Economic Times. Have lost the link. I think has some relevance to what is being discussed here.

NEW DELHI: When the former chairman of Pepsi India, PM Sinha, phoned Indra Nooyi's residence on Sunday evening to congratulate her, she had already left for work. It was 7.15 am in New York, and husband Raj answered the call — an obviously happy man. Sinha, an old friend, refused to give details of their conversation, but said Raj has been a pillar of strength for Indra ever since they met in the US and got married.
ET tracked down the reticent Raj Nooyi at the couple's Greenwich residence in Connecticut, where they live with daughters Pritha and Tara. He answered the call in his typical, unassuming style, but refused to divulge much. "It will not be proper for me to talk to the media. It is not relevant. I suggest you talk to my wife. I will be happy to support you if Pepsi and its staff wants (it)," he told ET. That's Raj Nooyi for you.
Originally from Mysore, Raj was president at AmSoft Systems, a global software development company, till recently. From 1991 to '01, he was a director at Pittiglio Rabin Todd & McGrath, a management consulting firm. After graduating in electronics and communications engineering from the University of Mysore, Raj went on to do his MS in industrial engineering from the University of Texas and MBA from the University of Chicago.
"Both Indra and Raj have very hectic work schedules. Still, they have managed family life wonderfully," a source said. The couple were present during US president George Bush's dinner in honour of PM Manmohan Singh last July. Raj also reportedly figured among the top 150 donors (he is believed to have donated $27,000) to John Kerry's presidential campaign.
There was a time when Raj travelled five days a week, but the couple was lucky to have Indra's elder sister and brother living nearby. A source said that Indra's multi-millionaire sister, Chandrika, is a turnaround specialist of banks and lives in New York and her brother is a financial consultant. He is married into the Chennai-based Srinivasan family.
Apparently, all three siblings always fought to have their mother, Shantha Krishnamurthy, stay with them. Deeply religious, Indra believes that three generations should stay under one roof as it is meant to be, say sources. The Nooyi household in Greenwich, Connecticut, has a large puja room where a traditional diya always burns.
You would imagine that the CEO of an American cola and chips company would hardly carry her religion to office. Sample this: Before signing the famous Quaker Oats acquisition on paper, she flew to a nearby temple. The prasad was distributed to all managers, including Quaker's president. Only then, did she sign the MoU.
Like most middle-class Indians, Indra Nooyi grew up in a family which put a premium on kids' education. Her mother expected her to excel at everything. "It was no fun sometimes, really awful. If you came home with 95 in geography, you had to study geography for the next two weeks. My mother would cry if you didn't get 100 in math," Indra had told Knowledge@Wharton three years ago. "Every night at dinner, my mother would make my sister and me debate. We had to speak about something like, 'If you were prime minister of India, what would you do?" And the award for the winner was a princely 'half of a square from a Cadbury chocolate bar'," she added.
Frugality has been another Indian virtue that Indra has lived with. At Yale, she took up the receptionist's job at night. In fact, she had no money to buy formal western wear and went for job interviews and summer jobs wearing a sari. A Tamil Brahmin, Indra has always seen the world through the prism of her mother's faith and beliefs, and calls her the guiding light of her life.
"The great thing about the US is that as long as you're darn good at what you do, people will accept you," observes Nooyi. She relishes the creative challenges of her job at PepsiCo: "My goal is to make sure we are constantly renewing ourselves. When you're ten million dollars in size, it's easy to grow at ten percent. We are 31 billion dollars, which means we have to add $3 billion of revenue every year. It's like adding a company the size of Hershey to PepsiCo every year." Nooyi came to the US from Chennai to earn a Master of Public Policy degree from Yale University. She was Senior Vice President of Strategy Planning for Motorola before joining PepsiCo, and has made it to the top the old-fashioned way, through sheer hard work.
Although hard work, ingenuity and boldness all are important factors for success, Nooyi believes that her Hindu culture is a very powerful anchor for survival and success in this country. She keeps an image of Ganesha in her office, and in fact, some PepsiCo officials who visited India and received images of Ganesha there, having learned that He is the God of Auspicious Beginnings, now keep images in the office. Nooyi thinks nothing of going to a PepsiCo board meeting in a sari, for she believes the corporate world appreciates people who are genuine. "Be yourself" is her magic mantra. "I'm so secure in myself, I don't have to be American to play in the corporate life."
A staunch vegetarian, Nooyi has never tasted meat or drunk alcohol. She says, "Now when we go out, even my chairman will tell everybody to make sure there's vegetarian food for Indra." A Hindu brahmin, Nooyi has always seen the world through the prism of her mother's faith and beliefs, and calls her the guiding light in her life. The family are Aiyar Saivites but also devotees of the Shankaracharya of Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu. Her mother-in-law is equally religious, with an affinity for Guruvayur, the Krishna temple in Kerala, and the Subramanyam Temple near Mangalore.
Says Nooyi, "Our family is so deeply religious, that whenever anything goes wrong they will pray and pledge a visit to the temple. So whenever we go to India, we spend all our time in temples, executing all the promises my mother and my mother-in-law made for the various illnesses or problems in the house!"
Nooyi recalls that while growing up in Chennai, which has temples on almost every street corner, prayer and ritual were the markers which gave meaning to life: "Our house had a very large temple room, and my mother used to pray three or four hours every morning. So the house was a deeply religious house, and every occasion of life and death was observed with great care and exacting standards."
Nooyi's husband, Raj, a partner in a management-consulting firm, travels five days a week, so she is fortunate to have her married brother and sister living in New York. The three of them literally fight to have their mother stay with them. She believes three generations living under one roof is wonderful, the way it was meant to be. "Now my mother lives with me, and my kids see her praying, so they too sit down and pray with her. Two days ago when my little daughter was feeling sick, she went and lay on my mother's lap. She chanted hymns and caressed her; after a while my daughter said she felt much better."
During the day, Nooyi is often exposed to the pressure cooker world of international business, but when she enters her home, it is like entering a sanctuary of calm. She says Carnatic music plays in their home 18 hours a day, and the feeling is much like being in a temple. Does she think her religious convictions help her to do a better job in the corporate world? "I don't know about a better job, but it certainly makes me calm," she says. "There are times when the stress is so incredible between office and home, trying to be a wife, mother, daughter-in-law and corporate executive. Then you close your eyes and think about a temple like Tirupati, and suddenly you feel 'Hey--I can take on the world.' Hinduism floats around you, and makes you feel somehow invincible."
Is it tough being a mother and a corporate executive? Nooyi admits that it is a very difficult task: "You can walk away from the fact that you're a corporate executive, but you can't walk away from the fact that you are a mom. In terms of being a mother and a corporate executive, the role of mom comes first." What sees her through tough times? "My family and my belief in God. If all else fails, I call my mother in India when she's there--and wake her up in the middle of the night--and she listens to me. And she probably promises God a visit to Tirupati!"
 
Clarification on stand

nagesh,

you have asked a lot of queries from this group, being a new member.

as a courtesy, perhaps, you might want to introduce yourself in a little more detail and where you are coming from, re the nature of your queries.

as discussed in our private message, you do have a bias for the bible, which is perfectly ok.

i don't think the average member here, may be as familiar as you are with the 12 tribes of judea or the similarities between levites or cohons to the iyers or the iyengars.

also, perhaps, you might want to explain where you stand re bridging the values between the philosophies of hinduism with that of abraham.

i am quite sure you would appreciate my request, particularly in the context of your note to me re your appreciation of the bible, and the noted absence of any acknowledgement to the values of any hindu scriptures.

this query is also meant to verify that you do accept the guidelines of this forum, and you would refrain from quotes and references towards hurting the sentiments of this group.

thank you.

Beloved Brother Kunjuppu

You seem to be cynical about my intent and purpose. There seem to be some misgivings about my post. I honestly do not understand the purpose of your queries. Yet I am most glad to clarify.

I trust I have been meticulous in the choice of my words and expressions. If it had apparently offended any one, sure enough I have been misinterpreted. Yet I most humbly tender my apologies.

As regards my roots, my grandfather was the chief priest in Palani temple many years ago. I trust you could understand the degree of orthodoxy and austere severities of the environment in which I was raised. For the first few years of my life I know only Sanskrit mantras and slokas. My mother still holds on to 'Madi' and 'Patthu' in this dawn of the 21st century, which she passed on to my younger sister who also holds on to the same in spite of being in Bombay, braving the rigours.

When I was 14 years old, I happened to attend a Bagwad Gita discourse of Swami Chinmayananda in my hometown Coimbatore. Chinmayananda's discourses and teachings instilled in me a strong desire to explore the deep truths contained in the Gita, which set of a chain of unquenchable thirst to unfold the mysteries of religion and eventually culminated into a quest to discover the eternal Truth. This lead me to classical and contemporary philosophies and philosophers like J.Krishnamurthy (who is distantly related to me). There were moments of disillusionment where some questions of mine were not answered. The Swamis were elusive.

Meanwhile I happened to encounter some Christian Missionaries, whom I misunderstood like everyone. But when I changed my attitude towards them and chose to lend my ears to their message and missions, many things were unfolded and uncovered.

It is my noble wish that everyone, especially TBs, understand and interpret every message appropriately with the ultimate aim of building harmony is society.

Shall continue later...
 
hi nagesh,

thank you for your note. and thank you even more for your clarification in detail about your antecedents.

i wish to assure you that there was no cynicism in my query. in this forum, it was born of previous experiences with other posters purporting to be someone they are not. or hiding what they are. this resulted in discordance with their various postings.

i wish you well, in your foray and practise of your spiritual needs, as these are very personal and of utmost importance to each one of us.

my own family are 3 generation educated by catholics, and i for one, have only regard for their institutions and warmest memories of my schools and fondness for my catholic friends.

my special area of interest is the medieval european history with its emphasis on reformation and counter reformation. a good historical topic, to chew on, i think, when shorn of the religious sentiments.

at the same time, i am a hindu, and much as my own and many other's focus here is not just hinduism, but also frank introspection with a view to reform and flourishment of hinduism in tamil nadu.

in this context, i hope your current beliefs, do not jarringly clash with the aims or the mood of the forum.

as you can appreciate it, our own internal discussions, stem from a view to caring for our hindu heritage. those whose goals are to propagate their own faith, do not necessarily view hindu reformation as in their best interest.

ofcourse you understand that too. so please be aware and heed to our sensitivities on that front, same as you would like others to be to your sensitivities.

ofcourse, feel free to participate such as to be part of the forum, and make everyone else feel that you too, though of a different philosophical mindset, are a part of this group. that would be a measure of your success here, i think.

after all, we are all a part of the greater humanity, and i personally believe, that religions have more in common, than what man has acknowledged them so far.

as a moderator, i am dismayed, when i see very reasonable and likeable people, with whom i banter with utmost joy in some threads, post some notes which are not quite in accord with the forum guidelines.

i would prefer people to come out and be honest with their antecdents and not give a runaround when asked queries.

in this aspect, i thank you very much for your straightforward answers and wish you a pleasant sojourn here

best wishes....
 
Dear Kunjuppu

Thank you very much for understanding me. Had I not appreciated the mission of this forum, I would be wasting my precious time posting threads here.

My wish is that everyone, the TBs in particular, must seek to know the Truth, beyond the confines of religion, while yet they may continue to oblige the ritualistic demands of their parental religion. The eternal Truth is beyond the reach of any religion, or philosophy or doctrine or dogma.

I think we need to reform ourselves and not pursue reforming religion. I am of the opinion that religions are not at our mercies for reformation. Religions were supposedly made to REFINE the human race. Sadly they seem to have failed. Neither religion can reform us nor vice versa. I think we need to break out of all shells, shed all the tags attached to us, unprogram and uncondition ourselves to realize the eternal Truth. Perhaps this is what was meant in Gita's verse "Sarvadharman Parithyajya Mameham Saranam Vraja .......". Swami Chinmayananda has best explained this verse in his discourse.

Glad to note your interest in the Reformation movement in medieval Europe. While the movement was aimed at reforming the so-called Roman Catholic Church, incidentally the movement caused Renaissance in Europe yet it failed to reform the people of Europe. It caused the emergence of many named denominations and institutions viz Lutheran, Anglican, Baptist, Methodist etc, but none reflected the essence of whatever they preached. None of them including the Catholics have been witness and testimony of the message of the Lord Jesus Christ whom they claim to follow. If at all the denominations served any purpose, they hindered others from understanding the pristine message of the Gospel. I shall refrain from discussing on this subject in this thread any longer.

With a word of sincere appreciation for your fair and just moderation, I thank you once again.

Regards
Nagesh
 
Last edited:
To All: quite interestingtopic, I have seen at Delhi streets two Tamils will speake only English or HINDI , but others will speake their mothertongue, were as at chennai a new comer if he used his mothertongue and people help him, but at north,Andhra,Karnataka if you use your mothertongue they willnever reply.(even a Tamil person) fear. So after settling at a country and become it part but should not farget the root. s.r.k
 
Brahmin Tamil

To All: quite interestingtopic, I have seen at Delhi streets two Tamils will speake only English or HINDI , but others will speake their mothertongue, were as at chennai a new comer if he used his mothertongue and people help him, but at north,Andhra,Karnataka if you use your mothertongue they willnever reply.(even a Tamil person) fear. So after settling at a country and become it part but should not farget the root. s.r.k

Indians in general feel proud speaking their mothertongues as Americans or Britishers speak. Anything foreign, especially western, especially American is considered superior and exquisite by Indians.

Incidentally where went the musical Brahmin Tamil? Gone are the days when Brahmins used words like "Avaa aathule, Jalam, Naazhi aayiduthu, Nanna irukkaela? Vandhundu, Poyindu etc". However I do not wish to start of this discussion on this thread. Perhaps we may open a new thread to discuss on this topic.
 
nagesh,

i have found that threads have a mind of their own.

like the river, the thread flows through all types of landscapes, changing hues and intensity, till its final end due to neglect.

or may be thread fatigue.

welcome to the world of threads and posts... feel free to start new threads as appropriate.

thank you
 
Ironically a Southern Brahmin should be able to trace his ancestry furthest back to the Northern parts. Tracing my genealogy based upon my community names and gothrams brought me to Uttar Pradesh. Apparently my community has been in Tamil Nadu for only about a 1000+ years.
 
re

Ironically a Southern Brahmin should be able to trace his ancestry furthest back to the Northern parts. Tracing my genealogy based upon my community names and gothrams brought me to Uttar Pradesh. Apparently my community has been in Tamil Nadu for only about a 1000+ years.

SI,

Please write as to how you were able to trace origins of lineage.Today Bharat has reduced in geographical map size,as we are clearly able to understand.Scriptures say,Bharat was way reduced in size to 56 dwipas during Adi Sankara period.Chinese historical (ancient) text mention somethings like 50 - 700 BC,as well as our dharma texts do.Tamizh region itself,goes way beyond Bali,Saigon,Kampuchea..friends who have visited Bali,Indonesia say there is inter-mingling of cultures...interesting post from you,thanks.

nachi naga.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest ads

Back
Top