To Let:Brahmins Only

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:05:57 -0700 · s

      http://maami.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/to-letbrahmins-only/

To Let:Brahmins Only
March 27, 2008 by maami

"We are Brahmins, so you'll have no problem", Amma flashed a wide
pandering smile at Mrs.J.

We had left Bangalore for Madras to pitch tent "permanently". We went
on to rent a small pad with a terrace from Mrs.J in Mandavelli on a
secluded lane called Sambandam Street. The landlady had a small
notebook paper stuck on a cardboard that swung on the gate of her
house. It simply said in black ink:'To Let, BRAHMINS ONLY'.

I was too young and ignorant to find anything odd about a community,
that applauds itself for its First World thinking, progressive ideals
and ready to move with the times, to be blase about advertising
rentals in such a segregational manner. And in the late 1970s and
early 1980s Madras, the community was still smarting from a bur on the
flesh for the angry sloganeering, insulting grafittis and ideological
political marginalisation that were insuniating and exasperating. The
practice of keeping away other community people from renting their
homes was probably the last vestige of untouchability that would serve
to prove the exclusivity they claimed and proclaim their silent
infuriation. Of course, the pious party-line in public was that the
kitchen, that often housed a small shrine for the Gods, should not be
polluted by the cooking of blood, bones and flesh and it was
vegetarianism that was the real reason behind the
reservation.Whichever.

Many years passed and much water had dried on the Cooum River bed.
Times had changed, old battles had passed on to newer ones and we were
"wery madern' and 'politically affirmative'. The new acronym that had
entered drawing-room discourse was an indication of that. It was
mentioned under the breath or muttered amongst their own. The new term
used was, "Avalaam" while referring to a particular sari, a tradition,
a taste, a habit or a characteristic.

And then there came a time when Amma and Appa retired into a small
flat looking out to the Bay of Bengal on the East Coast Road. It meant
that our house and an old flat were up for rent. The flat was not a
problem. Friends, neighbours and acquaintances claimed it for rent.
Between a Mangalorean Rao, a Saurashtrian Brahmin and a regular old
Mylapore family as tenants, the flat remained, "unsullied" and
"unpolluted".

The house, though, remained an issue. While Appa squirmed silently and
looked at me guiltily, Amma announced that he place an advertisement
in The Hindu.

"Brahmins only", she insisted it be worded in the advertisement.

I pulled my knife out.

She acted haughty."I am very modern, but you see, the house shares a
compound wall with a temple and if the tenants chuck pieces of bones
and meat and all, it will pollute and descecrate the temple", she
reasoned.

Appa, ever her noble protector, said meekly:"It's her house. I gave it
to her as a gift."

Aargh. I went snogging out on the beach with my  "Avalaam" boyfriend
and it tasted sweeter than any panchamritham prasadam that Amma would
have bought home.

But I digress. Back to Amma's approved tenants.

The first left within a year to Muscat. They vacated the house after
breaking the toilet, shattering the glass-case and leaving the
concrete broken in the garage.

The next didn't pay up rent regularly.

The third, an advertising executive, phoned in and complained of
'Amai' (tortoise) entering  the garden. Complained that it was a 'bad
omen' and 'aathukku aagadu' and left.

With his growing Parkinson's and the frequency of shifting tenants, on
his last leg of sanity, Appa sold both the homes.

Have things changed today? Slowly and recultantly, the last vestiges
of exclusivity are dropping. Amma's youngest and most orthodox and
traditionalist brother has rented his flat in Palaymkottai to a Muslim
family from Pathamadai. He resists eating off their plate, but finds
his tenant has endeared himself to the family.

I hate to admit to smugness, but Amma bereaved and distraught, didn't
object this time, to the new meat-eating tenants who now reside in her
flat.

ரிலாக்ஸ் ப்ளீஸ்

Friday, March 25, 2011

சீமான் மனதை ரணமாக்கிய ஆத்தா செயா!

To Let:Brahmins Only

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