ExpertDabbler

I have a feeling this post is going to ruffle a few feathers. So here we go to the writer’s background part so that you know exactly the holes to pick and blast with. A 28+ yr old, single, available, middle-class, 99% vegetarian,1% omletarian, avani avittam celebrating, non-smoking, teetotaller Chettiar community fellow.

Srivatsan had blogged exactly a week ago about the cultural identity. Sensational post.I was truly impressed by the strength of his arguments and maturity in his post.

The first point of contention:

Cultural Identity

The manager should be more concerned about the quality of the work done and not about what ones wears in his forehead. After all we get paid to work and not to come in a particular dress. Frankly, I detest to the core when I am forced to attend office with a tie around my neck on Mondays. Imagine Chennai weather, an official attire complete with black shoes. And as if this is all not enough, a tie to strangle with on Mondays.

Lets assume Sri and Chakra are working in HP.If its going to be just Sri and Chakra in an office of 2000 with a naamam in their forehead and that too on some Ekadesi day, it may at best result in a few raised eye brows but nothing much apart from that.

Lets assume that I am the HR manager for that branch of HP.(Please don’t laugh ok?)
As a manager,i am also responsible to foresee situations when implementing policy measures. Lets take a hypothetical situation.

What if slowly all the Iyengars want to display their cultural identity as its their birth right? Assume HP has about 100 Iyengars. So soon we are going to have around 100 guys with Naamam in their foreheads. Since Iyengars come with Naamams, What if Iyers want to display their cultural identity as well(there is always this healthy competition thing between Iyers and Iyengars you see). Lets assume there are about 400 Iyers. They have every right to be proud of their cultural identity. As a manager, I cannot say no to Iyers displaying their identity because I have given my assent to Iyengars. So they make it evident they are Iyers with their bashai, Veshti and some book on Lord Shiva. Now we have two primary classification.

Since these two communities are trend setters, non-brahms do not want to be left behind and they follow suit too. The Gounders from Coimbatore and Nadars from South Tamil Nadu want to have their own identity which is their favorite respective Bashai.

Now i am slightly worried but i’m ok. After all first the brahmins now the non-brahmins. Whats the big deal?

Later on some mallus want to establish their uniqueness with madichu kattina veshti, umbrella and Mundu (Come on, didn’t i tell you Mallu girls are my favorites?). Chettiars from karaikudi want a distinct identity as well which is their celebrated cuisine. To my horror, all those trim chiseled muscles guys have got pot bellies in no time. They want only their kind of food. They always talk in their typical chettiar slang. How unfair of the government to reduce interest rates to 18% for money lending?

PK, the HR Manager is now kinda worried. Soon without even my knowledge, there are N number of distinct sub sections within the company. Too easy for a Vijaykanth movie script writer to rattle out stats like,”HP la 200 Iyengars, 400 Iyers, 300 Gounders, 150 Mallus, 75 Singhs. Of these 189 iyengars, 181 Iyers, 279 Gounders, 142 Mallus and 69 Chettiars are in the office at this time.” Too easy.

And with so many of thier own community around, thre is very little reason for them to mingle with others. Since they talk among themselves, you cannot avoid jokes at other communities. Mallus tease Tamils as “Pandi” etc.

“Ok Dude, we understand there will be too many sub-sections and sub-companies within HP. So what?” you might ask.

The crunch but obvious point is that we are all human beings. And like all human beings we all have our own psychological stereotypes. Nobody can escape that. Stereotypes exist for a reason. It gives an optimised solution and prevents the brain
from working too hard. But sometimes it prevents the brain from working at all.

Some popular stereotypes include:

Black guys make better basketball players.
Chettiar guys are good at managing money.(Come tell my mom. Both you and me are going to get a earful)
Brahmins and Jews are the brainiest of human species etc.

Stereotyes are based on one person’s subjective experiences and it may also be true. But its not applicable to all at all the time. Sometimes in a matter of critical importance to chakra, i may have a negative stereotype about his community and this may even affect his career actually. It will all be too subtle to find out. I am too experienced to make it obvious, so nobody is going to think about this discrimination.

Or I may have a very high regard for ioiio’s community and therefore trust him, only to regret in the end(”kidding man” nu smiley poduven nu nenaikadhe)

Malcolm Gladwell talks about this aspect brilliantly when he explains the Warren Harding error in BLINK.(For more information please send Rs.101 to me for giving this valuable info and search Google. Thanks in advance.)

My father always used to tell me “Brahmins are always a conscientious lot karthi. You can always trust them”. True to a great extent, until i came across some totally unscrupulous types. Now I am as confused as I was before I heard that generalised statement from dad.

One favourite stereotype of mine was that Brahmins are intelligent. I held on to this theory so dear for so long that it came as a shock to me when I found one dumb brahmin. Now i feel i am the one dumb one bcos the very concept of equating intelligence with Math and Language ability with Intelligence is passe’. Now is the season of Howard Gardner’s “Multiple Intelligence” (Another Rs.101 please). In his famous book “Frames of Mind” Gardner states that there are at least 8 types of
intelligences. According to him, Michael Jordan is a genius in the intelligence of Body Kinesthetics, though his SAT / GRE score may not be too flattering.

Now that we saw about the stereotypes and intelligences. Each person will have an opinion about the other based on his experiences with that other’s community, he will always interact with X with the person’s community in mind.

If I have a bad experience with Chakra, there is every chance that I will carry that in mind when I interact with srivatsan becuase they both have the same identity. That they are Iyengars is clearly displayed like Logo in their foreheads.

Likewise if each person give effect to all the filters, all that will prevail is chaos.

And did I tell you i’ve already been asked to put in my papers and today is my last day as HR manager?

I have seen guys who have so much bad opinion about brahmins. How will I ever make them understand that I have so many brahmin friends some for more than 20 years and they are as good as or as bad as others. What if guys like that interact with Chakra et al in a professional environment?

This is not that i am pro-somebody or anti-brahmin or vice-versa.
There are rights and wrongs in the practices of all community including my own.
Criticizing some aspect does not make me an antagonist of that community.

The internet(for those who do not know) reeks of such anti-brahmin personalities especially in tamil blogs. The reason? Not much interaction with brahmins and too much of listening to dravidian party brainwash.

To follow:

What about westernised dresses? What about pizzas? What about ties, blazers as formal dress code in hot chennai climatic conditions? What about feeling proud to be a brahmin. Why not? What is meant by pride by association?

Tomorrow…Engey ponaalum, ingey vaanga….