Our Culture

[kunjuppu]

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This one had me in fits of giggles to think that Tamil played second fiddle to Sanskrit for TBs. How many TBs in TN can even speak Hindi let alone Sanskrit? OTOH they actually, speak, write and are orators of some of the best Tamil, n'est ce pas? as you always say

dear amala,

it is not whether we know sanskrit or not. it is the emotional attachment to it. it is the same as muslims' devotion to arabic, irrespective of their mother. it exists side by side, but for the tamil, it is tamil tamil tamil and tamil alone. except in tamil nadu, so far, the tamils have respected the tamil muslim's unquestioned loyalty to koran and arabic.

but not to sanskrit, which they view as a competitor to tamil, re classical language status.

it is a ready tool by tamil nationalists to question the loyalty of tamils. and often referred to by tamils in a sarcastic manner about the tambram love of sanskrit. which i myself dont possess but my cousins used to and take it as a second language in school instead of tamil (english being the medium).

considering the increasing failure of law and order all over india, i feel, that a strong caste identity is one sure way for physical safety. along with it numerical presence and political clout, both of which tambrams do not have any more in tamil nadu.

let us take a scenario where a local politician takes a shine on your daughter and kidnaps her. just as it happens in the villages. previously most tambrams had sufficient contact in police or civil service to pull strins and enforce the law. the police took action, and the fear of it, alone, provided a margin of safety. i feel, increasingly this security is fast disappearing, only to be replaced by goonda rule.

so that, if a middle class tambram lodges a complain, chances are that the goonda has more influence to scare the police to inaction. a few weeks ago, a poor gurukkal's daughter was eve teased, and when he protested, the goondas just stabbed and walked away. i dont think much action will be taken against the goons, because a gurukkal has no clout. and the brahmin establishment in tamil nadu exists no more.

we need powerful supporters. failing which we need representation in both the political spectrum. by our bull headed approach to periyar and dravidian rule, we have isolated ourselves to an extent, that nobody could care less, if we disappear from the face of tamil nadu.

such elements are increasingly represented in the blog world. vandheri is a common term for tambrams, thanks to our grand parents suddenly 'discovering' that we are 'aryans' and the NBs being 'dravidians' - a racial fallacy, which suited us 100 years ago, but suits the tamil nationalists and periyar followers now. add to it, the remaining tambram mouthpieces like cho, subramanmiam swamy or hindu ram, actively worked against LTTE and are perceived pro rajapakse. while several other tamil groups did the same, all have physical manpower to prevent any assault, whereas we have none.

our poorer tambrams are prone to physical harm and all it takes is a few folks to carry out a pogrom, and while the whole society be watching, not one hand will be raised to help us. that is my gut feeling. and nobody is working to repair the damage. instead everyone is harping on modi in far away gujarat. modi has no love for tambrams which these guys dont understand. why should he? we dont have votes for him.

enough said.

 

[renuka]

Renu what is this kalyan mandap all? Sounds very Odia! manasula peria North Indian-nu ninaipo . Kalyana Mandapam sounds so much more sweeter, what!

Aiyooo/Oyeeeeeee Amala Garu...I tend to mix up lots of words too like I say Kumbhakaran sometimes instead of Kumbhakarna, Ravan instead of Ravana..so this Kalyan Mandap is one of the those I guess besides being easier to type due to less words.....I guess this is what happens when one is a hybrid of South Indian and North Indian heritage(one has the best of both worlds in them..can safely switch from South to North mode and back and forth and swear in both Tamil or Hindi/Punjabi)

To avoid of being "accused" of "Odia! manasula peria North Indian-nu ninaipo "I better stick to Sanskrit yaar to be neutral and safe...so the word should be Kalyana Mandapa to be safest so that one does not end up Hindi-izing Sanskrit as in Kalyan Mandap or Tamilizing Sanskrit as in Kalyana Mandapam.

BTW Amala Garu... there is no harm using any ishtyle of speaking an Indian word...just like how I spice my posts with Garu and Yaar or may be I should start going into other regions of India too... like Bengal isthyle for example!eace:

One more point came to my mind now Amala Garu...it was not me who started the Hindi Song Thread! Ha Ha Ha.

 

[renuka]

I always had this doubt in my mind>> I am pretty sure the ancestors of Tamil Brahmins in present day Tamil Nadu spoke Sanskrit...but now hardly any TB speaks Sanskrit in Tamil Nadu?? So that shows that even TBs of the past did not "maintain" their own culture isn't it?

 

[sangom]

I always had this doubt in my mind>> I am pretty sure the ancestors of Tamil Brahmins in present day Tamil Nadu spoke Sanskrit...but now hardly any TB speaks Sanskrit in Tamil Nadu?? So that shows that even TBs of the past did not "maintain" their own culture isn't it?

I have my doubts whether any of the Pancha Dravida Brahmins took to speaking sanskrit for their daily life, because it would have been a foolish undertaking when, day in and day out, they had to deal with the dravidian speaking people. What perhaps could have happened is that these brahmins must have migrated south of the Godavari when the most of local inhabitants were still partially in the tribal, forest-dwelling stages and must have imbibed the dialect of those tribes with which they had to interact. This tribal dialect must have undergone a good amount of sanskrit and prakrit mixture and thus we would have the local "brahmin" languages.

Brahmins, of necessity, must have been well-versed in sanskrit. Till Macaulay's educational bill, almost all tabra boys were sent to the vedapatashalas where they had to learn, besides the veda/s by rote, sanskrit also. Only after tabras found out that english education opened up the highly lucrative company/british government jobs, the sanskrit education lost its position among tabras. But since Tamil is not conducive to easy sanskrit learning most tabras have become completely ignorant of sanskrit, unlike Kannadigas, Telugus and Malayalis, within the last century or so.

 

[Delhi6]

Blogs are usually reflective of individual's opinions; some of them may be opinion-makers, but that is rare AFAIK.

The idea of Tamil Eelam is a vote catcher now in T.Nadu, I think. I do not know whether JJ has also since endorsed this idea.

But looking at the Tamil Eelam issue, from what little I have learned of GK, it is rather impossible to achieve that dream, especially because China now has a military presence in SL. Even assuming, for argument's sake, that a Tamil Eelam is formed in the near future, will TN or India be capable of playing any significant role there?

The fear that tabras face genocide/eviction, on the lines of Kashmiri Pandits, seems far-fetched to me. Will some one furnish more evidence in support of such an eventuality happening?

Sangom Sir,

I think Kunjuppu Sir meant Separate Tamil Nadu state as dreamt by Tamil Nationalists alongside secession of Eelam from Sri Lanka.

Regarding Tamil Eelam issue, India and Sri Lanka are on same page. Neither of them wants Eelam to be a reality. When India decided to support Sri Lanka in eliminating Prabhakaran and LTTE, we went the whole hog. Even when feelers were given by Norway,UK and USA to allow Prabahakaran to escape(and they did send rescue vessels for the same), India positioned its Naval Destroyers between those rescue vessels and Lanka mainland.

As for TB's facing the same fate as KP's, I was only putting two and two together. If the NB do harbour such intense hostility towards the TB's as Kunjuppu Sir and கால பைரவன் Sir/Ma'am say, then god forbid if situation turns violent, TB's sadly would be sitting ducks.

I say this because in Punjab Sikhs and Hindus were far more integrated than NB and TB in Tamil Nadu( as it appear to be from the posts in this thread). We had a Roti-Beti ka saath.(we intermarried and cooked together[sanjha chulha]). Yet when things went south, Hindus were escaping from Punjab.

 

[Delhi6]

hi delhi,

i am glad that someone else in this forum, has some interest in this topic.

first of all i think there is no such thing as 'loons'. politics and politicians manipulate people to their own ends. and while democracy is still, i think the best vehicle, for a vast and multi ethnic religious linguistic casteist country like india, there are occassions when it fails.

I agree that democracy is best to govern India. I called the manipulators as loons and not the manipulated. My reason is simple. They have seen that Indian state has been anything but soft with secessionists yet they persist in their demand of separate homeland solely on strength of false Anglo Saxon support. I say Anglo Saxon because of what Hillary Clinton said in Pakistan sometime ago. The misty eyed dream of Balkanised India still has some traction with the Anglo Saxon elite.

periyar stopped short of violence against brahmins, but i can understand his level of disgust and frustration, for the tambrams of those days, were an epitome of arrogance. all thanks to passing tenth class and getting most of the government jobs. the hitherto respected but poor brahmin, overnight lorded over the middle castes, who developed in them a deep hatred which continues to simmer. i think.

in no other state has the Brahmins, with so small a population, dominated for a short while, ie late 19th and up to mid 20th century, the socioeconomicgovernmental aspect of the state. in fact in Tamil Nadu, it is Brahmins and non-brahmins - ie 98% of the hindus were classified into one group, and treated such. ofcourse there were interactions, but were confined to the level needed for the benefit of the Brahmins. atleast this is the perception of the middle castes, each with a long history, and also a combined history of tamil ancient glory and absolute love of tamil.

the tambrams loved tamil only to the extent that it played second fiddle to sanskrit, and this is another bone of contention for the other tamil tribes. add to this the race factor - the idiot tambrams of the 20th century, started believing in some hodgepodge theory that we were 'aryans' and the rest of tamil nadu 'dravidians'. it suited them then, but then, this became a great instrument for periyar and such, to cast aside the tambrams, as being from the north and called 'vandheris' or visitors, ie not sons of the soil. even though brahmins have been part of tamil nadu scene right from the sangam age, ie 2000 year BCE and documented such.

all this from the non brahmin viewpoint. the tambrams, most would disagree with the above, but the disagreement is of no consequence. the power is with the dravidians now. the trend is towards tamil nationalism ie the original tamil tribes of nadars, velalars, vaniars, dalits etc..and not the recent arrivals like naidus naickers (periyar belonged to this group) reddiars who are the bulwark of today's dmk but are of telugu or kannada origin.

the tamil nationalist are extreme in their love of tamil to the extent, that they would eventually go by racial definitions of castes and 'purity'. there is a place for brahmins there, but the tambram have been looked upon as traitors, particularly because folks like cho, hindu ram and subramaniam swamy have been openly against LTTE and also critical of tamil aspirations within lanka, ie separate eelam.

As for the first bolded portion I have no way to know otherwise so I will take your word on face value.

As for the second portion, even I am against a separate Eelam and I am a non Brahmin from north. Separate Eelam doesn't bode well for India. That said the kind of depraved violence Rajapakse has unleashed on Tamils in Lanka can't be condoned. GOI must coerce him to redress this wrong (behind the scenes of course)

btw who is Hindu Ram? Do you mean N.Ram of Hindu? If yes, I do not find his public persona to be either pro Brahmin or pro Hindu. Very frankly I find this newspaper to be a red rag and a Chinese mouth piece ever since Indo-US nuclear deal negotiations began. Sad sad decline for a newspaper I used to like.

 

[Delhi6]

Kunjuppu Sir,

Regarding the quotas its not only the Bramins who are upset. Even I was very cross when I missed out on my medical seat by ten marks in DPMT entrance and people who scored half as much as I did got admissions on strength of quotas. To put this in perspective ten marks meant two multiple choice question which were incorrectly marked.

The only reason I am not so bitter is because I fluked my way through all engineering entrances. Its only during my engineering days where my workshop partner was from one of those ""others" that I came to know better about their circumstances. To his credit he made the most of the opportunity and went on to do his MBA from Oxford. Since I know of his humble origins I can safely say that he just couldn't have achieved this without reservation. However for every one such example there were quite a few who just couldn't cope with the studies. Partly because their fundamentals were not strong and partly they felt they were unwelcome in the institute.

 

[Delhi6]

Regarding Civil Services

Administratively India is irreversibly an OBC country today . Mandal might have preponed the inevitable by a generation, but I suspect it would have happened anyways if India continued to increase its literacy rate and grew the way it did. I doubt removal of quotas would help us folks in reclaiming the old dominance in anyway. These days in top 20 at least 5-6 are from the OBC category. Generally from South India and Maharashtra(I guess these states did have affirmative action in place a generation earlier than north).

 

[Delhi6]

................often referred to by tamils in a sarcastic manner about the tambram love of sanskrit. which i myself dont possess but my cousins used to and take it as a second language in school instead of tamil (english being the medium).

Sir, the reason could well have been that sanskrit is scoring and helps in beefing up percentage. It was the sole reason I opted for sanskrit. Mom being a sanskrit teacher only helped.

vandheri is a common term for tambrams, thanks to our grand parents suddenly 'discovering' that we are 'aryans' and the NBs being 'dravidians' - a racial fallacy, which suited us 100 years ago, but suits the tamil nationalists and periyar followers now.

Lol. We Indians need to outgrow the British and Eurocentric taxonomical agendas pronto. Up here in North its not only Brahmins but many other communities who claim descent from greeks, Central Asian Aryans. I guess its a variant of what M.N.Srinivas called Sanskritisation. Even my community latches on to the hokum of martial race very strongly and tries to map the number of Paramveer Chakras and Victoria crosses it has won because we are so martial in nature.