A favourite expression of approbation in the community is "God-fearing." But his conformity is a convenience rather than conviction, arising partly from his reluctance to be the "odd man out". Ancient taboos atavistically present in him are observed in letter rather than in spirit as in the obligatory rituals regularly performed. His house has its sacred and secular spaces clearly demarcated. Even today, in villages and small towns where the "flat culture" has not yet found its way, a traditional Tamil Brahmin house has the ancient layout of increasingly "sacred" space as one goes inwards with the right of admission to each strictly caste-graded. In cities, where the "drawing-cum-dining room" layout has insinuated itself into domestic architecture, the Pooja room is inviolable.
A Tamil Brahmin's modernity is equally skin-deep, readily discarded in the privacy of his home. He eagerly sheds his trousers and shirt the moment he is back home and gets back to his comfortable lungi and bare chest. Until recently, alcohol was not a domestic amenity even among the more affluent and "modern" Tamil Brahmins and was meant mostly for others who might visit. Though for professional reasons and for compulsions of livelihood, he will go to the end of the earth, he is by no means as cosmopolitan, readily jettisoning his cultural baggage and merging with homogenized non-descript new environment. His domestic pieties are preserved whether in New Delhi or New Jersey and his twin-passion of temple worship and Carnatic music are never ever abandoned wherever he is.
Like the Jew to whom he is often compared, he is a great survivor. One of the earliest communities to have eagerly embraced the exhilarating new opportunities offered by English education in the early 19th century, the Tamil Brahmins had acquired a near monopoly of the much coveted Government employment of the times. This had naturally led to upper caste non-brahmin resentment, which effectively politicised itself in the first decades of the last century. When this self-consciousness captured political power and formed governments in the 1920s in the Madras Presidency, it pursued vigorously a policy of reservation that ended the Brahmin's earlier monopoly of government jobs. This was the signal for the great Tamil Brahmin Diaspora that still continues.
Denied opportunities at home, the Tamil Brahmin sought and found newer pastures in Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta. Caste-neutral professions such as accountancy and journalism became the alternatives. Still later, newer professional opportunities abroad, notably in the United States, became the magnet. And with the ascendancy in recent years of the new information technology where brainpower is more important than capital investment, this dispersal has become a flood. Almost every English-educated middle class Tamil Brahmin family has a younger member abroad.
Like much else in the world and in this country, the Tamil Brahmin profile is no doubt changing. The younger generations are conspicuously deracinated and some of the unique qualities of this community are getting blurred and homogenized with the rest of the world. Older generations still around are often disconcerted by the fact that the young Yuppies are losing their unique traits such as the love of their mother tongue and routine absorption of domestic pieties in an ambience of soft Hinduism.
Sanskrit slokas and Tamil Prabandam verses that used to reverberate in the house in the stillness of the evening are being heard less and less. Raucous rock music is displacing the softer Carnatic melodies and ancient civilities are being replaced by modern brusqueness in the attitude of the young towards the elders. But deep down, not much has changed. They are still the world's best second-rate men.
The author, a former Editor of The Indian Express, is a distinguished scholar in English and Tamil. An English version of Kamba Ramayana edited by him was published last year. {end}
A Tamil Brahmin's modernity is equally skin-deep, readily discarded in the privacy of his home. He eagerly sheds his trousers and shirt the moment he is back home and gets back to his comfortable lungi and bare chest. Until recently, alcohol was not a domestic amenity even among the more affluent and "modern" Tamil Brahmins and was meant mostly for others who might visit. Though for professional reasons and for compulsions of livelihood, he will go to the end of the earth, he is by no means as cosmopolitan, readily jettisoning his cultural baggage and merging with homogenized non-descript new environment. His domestic pieties are preserved whether in New Delhi or New Jersey and his twin-passion of temple worship and Carnatic music are never ever abandoned wherever he is.
Like the Jew to whom he is often compared, he is a great survivor. One of the earliest communities to have eagerly embraced the exhilarating new opportunities offered by English education in the early 19th century, the Tamil Brahmins had acquired a near monopoly of the much coveted Government employment of the times. This had naturally led to upper caste non-brahmin resentment, which effectively politicised itself in the first decades of the last century. When this self-consciousness captured political power and formed governments in the 1920s in the Madras Presidency, it pursued vigorously a policy of reservation that ended the Brahmin's earlier monopoly of government jobs. This was the signal for the great Tamil Brahmin Diaspora that still continues.
Denied opportunities at home, the Tamil Brahmin sought and found newer pastures in Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta. Caste-neutral professions such as accountancy and journalism became the alternatives. Still later, newer professional opportunities abroad, notably in the United States, became the magnet. And with the ascendancy in recent years of the new information technology where brainpower is more important than capital investment, this dispersal has become a flood. Almost every English-educated middle class Tamil Brahmin family has a younger member abroad.
Like much else in the world and in this country, the Tamil Brahmin profile is no doubt changing. The younger generations are conspicuously deracinated and some of the unique qualities of this community are getting blurred and homogenized with the rest of the world. Older generations still around are often disconcerted by the fact that the young Yuppies are losing their unique traits such as the love of their mother tongue and routine absorption of domestic pieties in an ambience of soft Hinduism.
Sanskrit slokas and Tamil Prabandam verses that used to reverberate in the house in the stillness of the evening are being heard less and less. Raucous rock music is displacing the softer Carnatic melodies and ancient civilities are being replaced by modern brusqueness in the attitude of the young towards the elders. But deep down, not much has changed. They are still the world's best second-rate men.
The author, a former Editor of The Indian Express, is a distinguished scholar in English and Tamil. An English version of Kamba Ramayana edited by him was published last year. {end}
