I am not that very shocked to note people brought up overseas find it difficult to find reason to stick to brahminism, because their environment is totally at variance. What is a shocker is why it is happening in india, that too with people from other castes who are more ritualistic and dogmatic. I think NBs today are more ritualistic than tambrams. Not sure how many in this forum have been to ceremonies in other communities for girls attaining puberty, weddings, deaths etc They are extremely ritualistic, most of which are not even vedic. Some are very annoying even for their own community girls like the example of puberty celebrations. So, I am not very sure it is the ritualistic customs that drive kids to marry outside. In fact, may tambram girls married to NBs these days are trying to bring their children up more brahminical and ritualistic. Almost all of them try to teach carnatic music to their children. Most of them name their children brahminically. The iyengar friend I refered to in another post, got an alliance proposal from 'brahmin mother' married to a muslim saying she has brought her daughter up 'as a brahmin with knowledge of madi paththu etc and as a vegetarian'. Now, this clearly shows it is not necessarily the ritual aspect that is driving women away. I am convinced that it is the age and attraction at the time of decision that is creating the situation. One may ask, arent brahmin boys attractive. But, the issue is, brahmin boys after 2 years of job are moving overseas or far off cities. So, teen age girls are these days surrounded by mostly NB boys, movie heroes are agmark NB characters who become their dream personalities, depiction of brahmin boys in movies and tv serials are as though they are impotent and incompetent is influencing their view, also due to reservations etc we find brahmin boys extremely career centric which makes them appear uninteresting. All these combined together, are driving girls to love NBs. I am just a few years elder to marriage age and I see this crystal clear in my work environment and we just need to recognize this reason and address it.
Dear kalyan,
Good analysis. Thank you for the same.
A while back, I used the term, ‘choplangis’ re tambram boys, and got a lot of flak for it. You have put it more sophisticatedly, and I complement you for it.
Believe it or not, one of my friends here, in his late 50s, one day opened up, and told me his love story. Apparently his now wife, when he met her first, was going out with someone from another religion. He too fell in love with this girl, and he won over, through panache and style. Now 35 years later, when I look at the wife, I have to stretch my imagination really hard re this rather plumpy middle aged woman, happily married with two daughters, as a wild siren, fought over by two youths.
Why, our own moderator KRS has stated here, re his first love and wife, a jewish lady. I am not sure how much their children have imbibed the tambram rituals, or familiarity with the scriptures. The Judaic religion, like ours, is intent on rituals, and there, it is the woman who is considered the guardian of the faith. Afaik, to the jews, a girl marrying outside of faith, is more a disaster than a guy. I may be wrong here.
no matter whom they marry, at the end of the day, the sun does set, and the moon still rises. life goes on, with similarly simple routine and many of our fears are just that. fears.
May I please ask you, what is your specific concern? Is it the celebration of festivals – navarathri, Krishna jayanthi, rama navami or thiruvadharai? Those are common to both B and NBs. Is it purity of blood. If so we need not worry – inspite of supposed lineage of gothras, beyond a few generations, we don’t how much intermingling there was, and the fact that all our DNAs are alike, should give us some comfort that south Indians have a lot of common blood line.
Re rituals: we tambrams have been watering down our stuff past century. What drives us now, I call, the 3 Cs – cash, convenience, comfort. that is not fiction but reality. I think many of us find them irrelevant, cumbersome or simply a chore – and hence walking away from performing many such, or shortcutting them. if this is a trend, no amount of gospelling from others is going to change it.
Personally, I would like our faith to reinvent itself in tune with the current values - do away with caste at the structural level, professionalizing of priesthood ie same as jews, islam or xtianity – ie go to vedic schools get familiar and treat this as a profession, rather than current ‘hand me down rules’ within families.
No matter what, thanks to migration, far and beyond india, the old close network and proximity of living and sharing the same values, is and cannot be there in the future. This change appears to be permanent, and how we handle it would be something that I am unable even to predict now. Maybe it may not be a bad thing after all, for we could inculcate our best, when mixing with other groups, at the same time discarding the worst of our prejudices. Who knows?
