WHERE BRAHMIN?

When the megaserial storm started to blow, my household was somehow, perhaps the only one whose roof didn’t get blown away. We were quite unaffected by the revolution in the living room. As Amma liked to say to people with that smug smile on her face, “We don’t watch TV at all. Aduvum enakkum adukum sambandame ille…” I do try and tell her that I remember her crying buckets over some episode of Premi; to which she says “Po di. Adu edo oru episode! Nan enna daily Premi paathundena?” Which is true, I think. Amma has, she herself admits, tried to watch some K Balachander serials because of some sort of misplaced loyalty towards him. But it never did last more than a few weeks, which means Amma watched about 1 percent of the entire megaserial. The only reason why are abreast with whatever is happening in every megaserial worth knowing about, is because Meenamma and Pads watch it when they come home.

 

The day it all changed is the day Ammamma spotted this little promo on Jaya TV – a little animated sketch of (gasp!) Cho and the word “Viraivil”. It sent Ammamma flying to the phone, and tell Amma “Cho vara poranan di, Jaya TV le! Edo viraivil viraivil nu podran! Ennava irukum?” Amma promised to watch Jaya TV as often as possible to find out what exactly Cho was going to do on Jaya TV.

 

Some background information at this point: any reference to Cho Ramaswamy in my house, will have people reacting quite dramatically. A good thing about him and the entire household will join you in singing his paeans and I suspect Ammamma will cry. Any criticism about Cho, and there’s no way you can leave my house alive. Because to them, Cho represents the quintessential Tamil Brahmin. The infallible intellectual who makes acute observations. The brave journalist who does not mince words. THE multi-faceted Cho. Cho is to my family, what Che is to a true blue Marxist.

 

An integral part of my childhood memories constitutes of my innumerable trips to the nearby potti kadai to grab the first copy of Thuklaq just as it hit the stands. And, much as she was tempted to grab it from my hands, Ammamma’s priceless expression as she made me place it in her hands, ever so gently, cherishing it as though afraid to wound it. Ammamma’s tattered copy of the Kamba Ramayanam in the pooja room and Thuklaq were unfailingly treated with the same reverence. One also noticed a certain servility while handling both these books. Even today, I am made to make a million trips from my house to Ammamma’s more than a kilometer away, to hand over/collect ancient/brand new copies of Thuklaq. And countless hours have been spent by Ammamma on the phone, discussing everything that figured in the latest issue of Thuklaq, with anyone who was willing to listen – Amma, Du, Manni, me, whoever. I am also urged very often, to start reading Tamil more seriously, and mark my foray into Tamil literature with Thuklaq. 

 

In my opinion, if Ammamma knew how to articulate her feelings for Cho and not find it blasphemous, she would describe it as a ‘crush’. A long standing crush, because her admiration is not just for today’s sharp political analyst, but also for yesteryear’s bumbling comedian. She would say to me, giggling like a little girl, “Anda padathule Cho romba vedikkaya pesuvan.” Anything the Cho-with-hair said is vedikkai, and anything the Cho-sans-hair says is “avlo correct di.”

 

To Amma, Cho represents the ideal Brahmin. “Irunda avare madri irukanum,” she says. What else is there to say?

 

Thatha is not far behind. The man, who used to watch all sports on TV, and only sports on TV, because he understands them all better than anyone else in the WORLD, now watches Enge Brahmanan too. I know how proud Thatha used to be, about his TV watching habits, because he deserved to be. He could not just understand every sport, he could play most of them competently. Thatha, whose TV always had to play what Sheetal wanted it to play (Sheetal is a sports freak too, so it really suited his convenience) despite the choice of anyone else in the house, even a guest, today plays Enge Brahmanan, often against even (gasp!) Sheetal’s wishes! Thatha himself, today asks his once-beloved Sheetal to shut up when Cho is talking. Sigh. How the mighty have fallen.

 

It really cannot be articulated suitably enough, how the family watches Enge Brahmanan every night – with a mixture of awe and devotion and reverence, and what else; and those expressions of delight and glee and sudden comprehension and realization… But I think I know why they watch Enge Brahmanan. Ammamma, because of the references to all the Hindu scriptures, and their glorification, and because of Cho. Thatha, because he himself is a big Cho admirer, and not grudgingly so. (Poor Thathu is no jealous man. The only ground on which he and Ammamma concur, is perhaps in their opinion of Cho.) Amma, because of the depiction of the poor Brahmin and the rich Brahmin in the serial. The rich Brahmin represents for my capitalist mother, the ideal Brahmin in the ideal situation he must be in, in today’s material world. The poor priestly Brahmin eases her conscience by staying true to what the scriptures dictated as to what the Brahmin should be – poor and priestly. Overall, my family watches Enge Brahmanan, because it appeals to their closet RSS sentiments (even if poor Cho did not himself intend it to do so), and reinforces the superiority of the Brahmin above all else. Or so they like to think. GASP! Did I mention Cho as one of the reasons why they watch it?? 

 

Today, Amma still says, “I don’t watch TV at all.” But also remembers to add, “Enge Brahmanan paapom ana naangellam. Chellama aduku Where Brahmin nu vera per vechirkom. (giggle) Pinna Cho vandal, pakka maatoma?” What can I say? Every night at 8, its veda gosham all the way.

 

 

YEN MA??

It’s really funny. You are walking about, always doing your own thing. You don’t hide anything from your parents; you tell them what you are up to in life. They try to make you do some things, but considering your record, they also know that you aren’t going to listen. And despite their slight unhappiness at your ‘lack of respect’, you know they respect your independence. (Sample: Amma with a mixture of pity and slight disapproval, on meeting this really chamathu, super obedient, good second cousin of mine after years: “Ayyo. Look at him. I feel really sad. He listens to his parents too much.”) But being parents after all, they do throw in the occasional emotional blackmail: “We trust you, so don’t do anything that would put us to shame.” But they are quite secure, because they know you can’t keep your gob shut, and have to come running home to tell them everything. Your mother knows your deepest secrets. She often disapproves, but always lets you do your own thing. She tells you not to get into trouble, but lets you fight your own battles. Your mother herself is not the conventional mother, you know. She is fiercely independent, and really cool herself, so you think anything goes.

Not. Their apprehension comes out in the weirdest ways. (This is what I find funny, like I said in the first line. Got sidetracked somewhere in between. Zzz.) I had decided, for personal reasons, to wean off my scooter. They thought I was being stupid then, wasting so much time and tiring myself out on the bus. But as always, I turned a deaf ear, and took to darling PTC anyway. Now, even if I really am tired, and want to use the bike on weekends, Amma starts to plead. “Please vendame. Take the bus. I’ll die of paranoia.” This, after years of you driving all over the city on your scooter. And when you decide to go anyway, they want you to message as soon as you reach, and message again before you leave and everything.

Even though it made me feel really liberated, it did irk me, just a little, when Amma wouldn’t call to ask if I was ok, when I had been out for hours and all. “Nee lam oru Amma va,’ I would ask her when I came back home, and she would roll her eyes. Now she has swung to the other side of the spectrum (and this I would attribute to her learning to message, and using her phone a lot – a big deal for my technologically challenged mother). “Message when you reach. Message me when you are going to leave. Message me if you get caught in traffic.” Even when I am travelling by bus. Imagine the number of instructions when I go to multiple destinations. *shudder*

I remember the times when I had to go to Shrimati class at 5; how Amma used to just roll of the bed, give me my milk, grumbling about not being able to sleep, and go straight back to bed in record time, even before I left home. Now, she wants to chaperon me to the bus stop when I leave home before 6. And when I am coming back home after 10, I generally find her standing at the bus stop, waiting to receive me, like I am arriving from Amerikkai. Zzz. Supremely irritating.

The Amma who told me to whack a staring bastard right across his face, now tells me not to make eye contact and avoid trouble. The Amma who wanted to chase me out of the house as soon as I finished school, now has conditions. “Delhi le velai panna kudadu. Bombay venna udren, pozhachu po.” The Appa who let me taste from every one of the little sample liquor bottles he brought back from France, now pulls a straight face and looks down when I tell him I tasted a friend’s drink. The Amma who had smoked one cigarette in college, because she wanted to try it, now glares at me, when my hair smells of smoke (My college canteen is a chimney with a roof). The Appa who used to buy me nice kutti skirts from everywhere he went on tour, now tells me to be careful when I wear short T shirts. The Amma who is slightly foul-mouthed herself, now asks me to shut up, when I inadvertently say “Shit” or “Bloody” at home. The Amma who used to laugh when I narrated drunken capers of friends, now clicks her tongue when I come back to tell her that beer was circulating in the party I had just been to. Even though she knows I don’t drink. The Amma who used to threaten her Amma saying she was going to elope with a Punjabi or Gujarati, now tells me, “Only Brahmin boys. Nyabagam vechuko.” The Amma who might have expressed thrill earlier, now looks scandalised when I tell her I am going to join the Pink Chaddi campaign.

‘Epdi irunda neenga, ipdi ayitele ma…..’, I say, like Sivaji in Vietnam Veedu. But they know that despite my irritation and indignation (and secret amusement), I will do my own thing anyway. I can hear them sighing behind me. And Amma saying, “Moni. Enkitte pesadhey po.”

NORMALCY AMIDST TURMOIL

It was a crazy day. I woke up as usual to go to college, only to realize that it was raining like crazy. Stumbling out of my room, still groggy as hell, I caught Amma staring at the paper. “Bombay hotels have been attacked by terrorists. They just walked in last night and started to fire indiscriminately. Encounter still on”, she said. We stood there staring at each other, then immediately rushed to the TV and turned on NDTV.

 

What I was seeing was straight out of some Hollywood movie. Bombs, shame on the country’s situation, we are quite accustomed to. But we had, until then, only heard of school shootouts in faraway America. But this time, it was our own Mumbai. A group of twenty young men had the entire country in frenzy. And the visuals on TV! There we were, looking at pictures of terrorists caught on CCTV, and unable to do anything about it. I remember staring blankly at the screen incredulously, until I fell asleep, curled up on the sofa.

 

When I woke up, it was raining even more violently. There was knee deep water outside my house. My grandparents had come over, because their ground-floor apartment was starting to get flooded. There was no power. We were all sitting inside a dark house, and the rain simply had no plans of letting up. There was nothing we could do. There was no way we could know what was going on, in other parts of Madras, and in Mumbai. It was like we were suspended in an alternate universe. The phone was our only link to the real world. Every thirty minutes, we would get a call from some part of the country – either Appa from Bengaluru, Du from Hyderabad, or Manni from Mylapore – to tell us what was happening in Madras and Mumbai. And with every phone call, the situation in either place didn’t seem to be getting better. And we were completely helpless, literally, in the dark. Not that there was anything we could have done had we HAD power and had there been no rains, but atleast you would know what was going on.

 

I knew I had to be out there, trying to figure out what was going on, how many lives the rains had wrecked. After all I was studying to be a journalist, and took my acads really seriously. But that morning, I don’t know what came over me. After hours of wondering whether to go to college or not, I decided to TRY. And try I did: went as far as Ashok Nagar by car, but couldn’t go any further; so I promptly returned home. And for the rest of the day, wondered if I should have tried harder. I knew I should have. I hated being a chicken. I had always wanted to be, you know, the real thing. And I sorely disappointed myself that day.

 

Night fell, and power wasn’t back yet. I couldn’t even read sitting next to the window anymore, and I had slept enough that day. I had to keep myself occupied in order to not feel guilty, but I couldn’t do anything anymore. The air inside my house was melancholic, until Thatha suggested we play Aadu Puli Attam. We sat down with a piece of white chart paper, 3 big betel nuts (the tigers) and bengal gram that made the aadus. I was quite thrilled. It was like when I was young, and Amma, Appa and I would play cards in the darkness. I was quite hooked as Thatha was teaching me, quite oblivious to Ammamma’s constant cursing of the country’s politicians and Amma receiving constant updates on the phone. I played well. We played for over two hours, with me relinquishing just one aadu. And when we finally declared it a draw, it was quite late. The rains were still lashing my windows. And as I stood, watching the deluge on the road beneath my window, I thought of how detached I was. I had a solid roof over my head, the rains weren’t claiming my life, and Bombay seemed so far away, almost as far away as America. And for a few hours there, there was perfect normalcy in MY life, even amidst all that turmoil around me. And that life thereon would continue to be normal for me. And somehow, it didn’t seem right to me to just count my blessings and live life to the fullest then. I was guilty as hell, and had trouble sleeping that night.

 

God bless all those who were saving lives while we sat in the comfort of our homes.

God save our country, where any shred of normalcy is today under threat.