This is an attempt to understand how discrimination forms the contours of our lives, to trace the history of the struggle against caste upon the self. To shift the discussion of caste into the present, into the personal.
ஒடுக்குமுறைகள் நம் வாழ்வுகளை வடிவமைக்கும் விதங்களை, சாதி எதிர்ப்பு அரசியல் நம் சுயத்தின் மீது விட்டுச்சென்ற சுவடுகளைத் தெரிந்து கொள்ளும் முயற்சி இது. சாதியைப் பற்றிய உரையாடல்களை நிகழ் காலத்திற்குள், சுய அனுபவத்திற்குள் நகர்த்த ஒரு முயற்சி.
Write your personal narratives of caste. Describe how you became aware of caste, how it shapes you and the way others relate to you. Describe the violence of caste.
சாதியுடன் உன் அனுபவங்களை எழுது. சாதியை நீ முதல் எவ்வாறு புரிந்து கொண்டாய், இந்த அறிவு உன்னையும் மற்றவர் உன்னுடன் உறவு கொள்ளும் முறைகளையும் எவ்வாறு உருவமைக்கிறது என்று விவரி. சாதியின் வன்முறையை விவரி.
seems a new-’s’ generation has exploded from the very structure it learned the meaning of exploitation. And it is certainly not a romantic figures to say these are ‘Boys’ or ‘Bab Boys’ or ‘Back Street Boys’ but sure these will use the same weapon ‘media’ to empower the exploited.
hats off
இந்த வலைபதிவு வெற்றியின் பாதையே ….. சிந்திக்க தூண்டுகிறதே … சாதி சிந்திப்பதையே பல காலம் நிறுத்தியதே!
lolol. I stopped subscribing to the hindu long ago, tired of reading about the same people and seeing their pics, thrice a week – MsYGP, MSSwamy and Sub-Swamy and firangi’s who visit town. I did try to buy the paper for classifieds, rental columns…but then turns out non of them are prospective landlords. ‘You see’, I am a ‘pure’ non-vegetarian. lolol
there used to be an ink which while one writes with it will erase the previous writing and inscribe what is being written now… (roughly the musing of a character in “Kings of the Road” by Wim Wenders). Congratulations! Best wishes for the effort. I will try to contribute sometime soon.
Beautiful attempt, and a wonderful, refreshing layout. Keep up the good work!
Malar,
Whoo! So happy that the blog is here. And I’m damn kicked that there’s Tamil (also translated, I can read but the big words’ meanings escape me!) here too. This is an awesome effort and I cannot wait to read everything that gets published here.
I am happy to have reached this blog, a great resource and help in understanding caste. I would certainly like to write my experience of caste- a brahmin woman’s, a ( so called?) progressive brahmin womans experience of caste. I dont have much language skill but still…
it is hard work to trace caste for the twice born adamantly raised in progressive atmosphere because from an early age you are taught to kick it under the carpet while it refuses to go there. then you learn to not look at it and not think about it.
rethinking and re acknowledging it , is a difficult process. but it is essential as its the basis of injustice as you point out above.
Malar, The title of the Web with Erumai Madu was very good. Why don’t you retain it.
Raj
I’m getting mixed feedback on this – a few people like you have appreciated the title. People who don’t read Tamil complain that a title in a strange script is disconcerting. Even a few Tamil readers want to know why a serious website should have a title that sounds so flippant.
Hi Malar, Its a beautiful “THE ATTEMPT & EFFORT? I Think you should keep the name “Erumai Maadu. I should asy Thanks to MC Raj who introduced this blog to me.
Hats of you malar
Hi Inba
You can now also join my blog http://dalitashram.blogspot.com. I started it inspired by Malarvizhi.
Malar, the idea with which you gave that very meaningful title should validate the retaining of it. It is good that different people have different opinions. That add a lot of color to life. Let differences be discussed. I thought you were very daringly intellectual when I saw “Erumai Madu’ in your Blogspot. It takes courage.
All appreciation for Malar. It seems like a new generation of dalit Indians, confident and determined to expose the country’s ‘ glorious ‘ past and present have risen. There’s nothing like trashing and exposing the fascist ideas that underly caste. Closet fascists who speak of one universal family in public and nurture fascism in their ghettos and pass it dutifully on to their next generation will not have much to stand on in course of time.
My experience has been a little different here. I grew up in a progressive family and went through all required rituals assuming it is the same across caste barriers..when it became apparent to me was when one day during a fight in college my friend (at whose house i have eaten and who has eaten at my house on the same utensils the family eats in (sic! and sick that i have to explain this)) said – If I Hit you it is okay i am an SC…but if you hit me even in self defense i can put a case on you coz you are a brahmin!! well…what do you have to say about that??
A progressive family with required rituals, how interesting. (I’m sure you don’t see any contradictions in that statement, I see plenty.) No, the poonal ceremony and much of the Tambrahm ritual paraphernalia are NOT the same across caste barriers. At weddings, after you have eaten the food served on the banana leaf, in which direction do you close your leaf? That’s right – away from you. The rest of Tamil Nadu closes its leaf inwards – towards them. In some communities, to close your leaf away from you is an insult to the host, a non-verbal sign saying that the guest did not like the food. That’s how finely differentiated our lives are. Everything – down to the direction in which you close your banana leaf – is marked by caste. How could you not know that? That alone is proof that neither you nor your family is progressive.
Why have you provided your email id as brahmin@tambrahm.com?
I like your friend. I might have liked him more if he had actually allowed you to hit him and filed a case too. What sort of a ‘friend’ describes his friendship with another human being as one in which you have ‘eaten at each others house and in the same utensils’? Answer: Only an extremely caste-ist one who thinks he is doing a dalit friend a favour by ‘allowing’ him to eat in the same utensils. Yes, it is extremely sick that you have explained this.
Your friend only threatened judicial violence. What do you have to say about the actual physical violence – rape, torture and murder – that dalits are subject to daily in this casteist country?
I doesn’t do well to write in assumed names like “Brahman” in this blog. My request to the person who wrote the mail would be to first declare his personal identity and share his thoughts with a spirit of inquiry. Further, I think what your friend said is some kind of banter. If he was serious for any reason, you need to think of how such a situation has come to pass and what histories you friends come to inherit. Only a very patient understanding of the intricate histories of caste, the privileges enjoyed by dominant castes like Brahmins and the incredible amount of systemic injustice done to the untouched (not untouchable) castes can make true friendship possible. If only you, my fellow Brahmin, can think of all those ugly pasts like me, you would not hurry to pride yourself about having achieved some formal sense of cohabitation too soon. We need a long way to go before substantial cohabitation is realized going beyond inherited cultural baggage. That said, I am not sure where Malarvizhi got this ethnographic snippet about folding of banana leaves. As far as I know Brahmins do not fold banana leaves. It is possible in some ceremonies related to death or offerings to the dead some such practice may have been followed in some sects in some areas. In fact it is hard to think of a “Brahmin” in such cultural minutiae. Apart from the major division of Vaisnavites (Iyengars) and Saivites (Iyers), each of these have several sub sects each having its own ways of serving, eating and other activities. The ritual practices are myriad and has always been changing with countless regional variations. If there is any hope of de-essentializing caste it is only by writing its pluralizing ways of being rather than invoking the out-dated Brahmin vs. the Rest rhetoric which served some good political purpose in the mid-twentieth century political mobilization. I am not convinced that it is any more productive to create oppositional blocks in serious intellectual engagements or writing personal histories. Likewise, I am not sure that all people can give up rituals altogether as much as they can creatively reinterpreting them.