Caste-ing names

Shruthi Padmanabhan writes about community certificates and classrooms, the castes of names and food and how her family’s history impacts her present.

My name has been a big factor in people assuming that I’m a tam-Brahm. Apparently, no one sent them the memo that Shruthi and Padmanabhan are Hindu names, not specific Brahmin names.

My parents, actually my mother because my father was in the army and away, spent more time trying to convince my brother and me to not beat the nonsense out of each other than telling us about caste. I knew more about the INA than I did about being an Ezhava.

The last thing you’re thinking of, at least when you’re a student, is caste. You like to be a generic individual. One amongst the many. The un-classified person. But no, the prissy man sitting in the department does not have to be nice about your lofty aspirations. He only says, “where is your community certificate ma? You got admission in the BC quota”, and for some reason, you find yourself back on terra firma with a nice, firm thud and you’re wondering how acing a test stopped having a relationship with getting admission.

Getting that certificate in class 10 meant fulfilling some CBSE regulation, when I was getting my MA admission, I didn’t think it even counted, but it mattered plenty to the prissy man documenting my certificates and me.

The professors in the department got a little crazy about this detail as well. A senior professor in the department calls me and my friend aside after class and says, “you are English-speaking girls who are in this position despite being from your respective communities [both of us BC], so please teach the class and help them upgrade to your level”.

This was when I realized that I had forgotten the lessons taught to us in our Malayalee school in Chennai. We were children of Sree Narayana Guru’s movement of One Caste, One Religion, One God for man. My maternal and paternal ancestors were not allowed to cover the upper parts of their bodies. These people were also not allowed into the Guruvayoor Temple. The Nairs liked it like that! Despite being part of one of the largest communities in the state, we were treated like we didn’t matter by the upper-caste Hindus.

When my greatgrandfather moved out of Kerala and went to Singapore during the British rule, he left behind a lot of baggage. When my maternal grandfather chose to settle in Chennai after his time in the INA, he also left behind a lot of baggage. My maternal family was removed from the nonsense that Kerala mostly is. And growing up in a home with a freedom fighter, the values my brother and I were instilled with had more to do with patriotism than they did with caste.

However, after school and college, the more people I met were surprised by the fact that I’m not Tam-Brahm. Their first reaction? “You’re mal? But your name…” [I would like to substantiate this - as recently as April 24, 2011, someone asked me how in the hell my Iyengar-toned name ended up on a Malayali girl! This coming from a half-Malayali. Again, did no one get the memo?]

The plot thickens! My father is from Palakkad and he went to an all-Brahmin school. My paternal grandfather’s colleagues didn’t approve, or didn’t like the sound of I’m not sure which, of my father’s original name (Nirmalan) and had it Brahminised to Padmanabhan. More than my caste, my name has caused immense confusion amongst the twice-borns. My being vegetarian (meat allergies), make this confusion even more interesting for me.

I’ve grown up in Chennai, so my story is once and maybe even twice-removed from the realities of a lot of people. Truth be told some of my very good friends are Nairs and Tam-Brahm, and caste is not the first topic of conversation or any topic of conversation. I only tell the twice-borns one thing – my life is less complicated because it’s free from worrying about who touched my food and where and how it was cooked!

I just want to reiterate one fact, I’ve never had a problem per se. I’m amused by most of the “I won’t eat in a restaurant that serves non-vegetarian food because their cooking methods are not as per our personal standards” variety. I’m irritated with the type that thinks people can’t be fair and have a certain last name because certain names are the prerogatives of certain castes.

I have it way better than the people who have suffered so much indignity in the name of upper-caste Hindus, but that doesn’t mean I’m removed from the narrative.

Shruti has written more on her blog.
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However, despite this being 2010, I have a profile listed in a matrimonial website that specifies that the boys or boys’ families asking for my hand in marriage should be the same caste as me…It’s a hard subject to articulate and debate, especially for me. I don’t know enough jargon to pull this off. Nor am I going to justify my usage of a word, in whatever spirit, in my posts. Suffice to say, it is what it is and it exists. I read the papers and sometimes there are stories of how an innocent, consenting, adult couple had to deal with the consequences of disapproval.

Read the full post on her blog.