Now a days those with money are treated as brahmins or higher caste. Even if we see love marriage most are either from same field of work or girls prefer well to do family boys. The expansion of fields of work and involvement of girls in works other than hose hold has changed the mindset of people. The girls who were KINNATTU THAVALAI has come out and loking the developed world. In my opinion this caste system will have naturla death in coming years.
correctly said krs.
on one hand, we will have the idealogues of tradition, who will not just moan, but scream with venom, at the 'loss' of jathi, purity and above all, the 'dilution' of the brahmin gene.
the other extreme, is still the remnants of the DK, who appear to be getting a new shot in the arm in the likes of sebastian seeman or thamizhacchi thangapandian.
not living in tamil nadu, i am not sure, how much the mainstream tamilians listen to these rabble rousers. to a large extent, the venom spewed is frustrations growing in a certain sections of tamil community over the overall refusal of TBs to support the LTTE.
cho's thuglaq, the hindu, dinamalar, dinamani, kalki, vikatan, swamy the politician all appear to sing the same tune ie LTTE was evil.
personally, i think, we were as a community, swimming in strange waters. to take to arms to resolve an issue is alien to us. i think that we, as a wholesome community took to the fight for indian independence, mainly because of gandhi's emphasis on non violence.
ofcourse, there are exceptions such as vanchinathan or lakshmi iyer. but these are exception. the mass of the TBs involved themselved to the cause of indian independence, like never before in their history, and if my guts are to be heard, never will be again. the fight for indian independence was unique, in the sense, we had in essence a ruler, for the first time in a millenium, who was not a religious fanatic.
there is a lot of talk about our 'heritage' to our learning. from the viewpoint of my family, it does not hold true. from what history i know of my paternal clans, there is neither education or erudition there. more of living off the 'gift of land' provided to the ancestors by the maharaja of travancore, which was dissipated over the generations by the sons, to such an extent, that by the time of my paternal grandpa, all the sons went out to the distant parts to earn living as clerks.
i find it best, not to put on airs about a glorious ancestry. for this only, in my case, gives me a baggage, that too unwanted. it is best, i think, for each of us, to portray ourselves as starting from scratch, evaluate what life gifted us in terms of talents and interests, and maximize our advantages to be better than anyone else in that sector.
that above mentioned 'sector', might be engineering, medicine, IT or finance (i am mentioning the comfortable solace for the pleasure of our traditionalists here
).
many a times, in the draw of talents that is life, several of our youth are inclined to something else - the arts, dramas, literatures, travel, biology, zoology, archaelogy and even more exotic careers. many of these, i am sad to say, are trimmed in their initiation by anxious parents (i too may be guilty of that which is even more dismaying) giving vent to their insecurities or ignorance. the path to manna appears to be the traditional modes. not for them to finance their children's tangential outlooks on life's careers.
working with the hand. this is a limb that we know, use and abuse. we, as a community, do not encourage, our children, to go further with the use of the hand - artists, jewellers, plumbers, carpenters, house painters and masons. there is an immense amount of treasure in pursuing these vocations.
when we say our son is an அம்பட்டன், we cringe in shame. but, the truth of the matter, is our son is an brand name hair dresser, challenging the likes of vidal sassoon, and where the likes of vidya balan or aishwarya bacchan would not blink to pay 50,000 ruppees to have their hair 'coiffured', something that the sun burnt guy, with his little wooden box and worn out razors would do for 50 ruppees.
it is often said that necessity is the mother of invention. perhaps, i would like to modulate this to another theme? necessity is the mother of innovation? let us innovate our minds, to newer and better traditions, traditions, that we shunned in the name of caste, for therein lies the key to our creativity and perhaps, yet another route to prosperity.
thank you.
