Heartless Tambrahms

If you run a search for “heartless” synonyms on” the freeonline dictionary” the results are unfeeling, unsympathetic, unkind, uncaring, unloving, unconcerned, insensitive, cold-hearted and more; words that defines tambrahms to a T.  Add self-centredness to heartlessness for a perfect definition.

            Make no mistake, it pains me to write this blog for I am a tambrahm myself. I can reduce the “tambrahm” slur on my head by claiming “though born a tambrahm I grew up in a liberal Hyderabad air” besides “I can’t read and write Tamil.” So please don’t label me as a tambrahm though I was born in that diseased gene pool.

             This Brahmin-nonbrahmin issue first cropped up when I was working in India Cements Limited. My colleague and good friend Manikandan would constantly harp and bemoan, “The management favours Brahmins for promotions and salary hikes over others.” Then in AIM for Seva, there were whispers that “Iyengars were preferred over Iyers.” My head reeled and I said, “It does not make any sense for I am not a Brahmin at all.”

            I look at my family. My father was the son of a vaidika Brahmin and so he is your archetypical tambrahm who married another trambrahm who was first rate certified idiot which even the dolt community could not stomach. My father was a coward (typical of those genome) for being tied to an idiot woman for his life on earth and worse still producing three offsprings who frankly were gene garbage material. My mother was so sick that she literally drove her man to an early grave with a nag unmatched even in Shakespeare's “shrew and termagant.” My two elder sisters found life much easier; they went to graduate, got married, have children and became Mylapore Mamis themselves. It is sad that Hyderabad education did not make them any liberal; they are as ritualistic, self-centred, and heartless as any in the community watching Airtel Super Singer on television. I became a vagabond and a castaway; grew up more a non-believer and one cannot be ritualistic being on one’s own. So no Sandhya Vandanam or any pestering mamis in the house for me to be house trained to the traits of this plighted community.

            I went through two decades of life blaming my poor stars at birth and my awful sisters. They are so heartless that rocks and stones and pebbles could cry as they saw me struggle through life without lifting their little finger. Both my siblings enjoy middle-class comforts of apartments in the metro, cars, children in Europe and USA but they were so poor as not to invite a penurious brother for a festival in 3 decades. My sisters’ pattern of thinking was a stereo type tambrahm mindset: after marriage: we get into a new family and a new gotra. The parent family may as well go to dogs except host us when we get pregnant and give tips for each Pongal on Kannu day.

            The next time I found this Tambrahm thing impinging on my mind was in the daily walks at Eliot’s Beach. My arthritis ensures that I barely reach the beach and sit down. For the last 3 months I sit with a vociferous group of a dozen men; all tambrahms. They are quick of wit and ready of laugh, loquacious and boisterous at even half-baked humour. I found not one person with “normal” levels of compassion excepting perhaps RV Rajan and Raghunathan mama. No one can accuse this community of a dumb processor for a mind; it is extra sharp in its grasp of events around. But there is constant struthi like a tambura box of heartlessness and self-centredness. None of them in the dozen who see me daily in the morning group saw any merit in me, never connected at a personal level, and my jokes and humour were emptied out on dry sand. They offered sweets and chocolates almost on the weekly basis to passerby; their laughs are large but the hearts were puny or non-existent. I stopped parking myself with this morning group the moment I got to know I was not invited for a get together which to a seasoned observer of tambrahms spells EXCLUSION.  Buddha specifically advises those on the path to DISSOCIATE with fools and petty minds and so I cut loose of any bonds with this group. 
               Contrast this to Vipassana where I am embraced for a decade, I have dhamma brothers like Arvind, Jaswal who went out of their way to bring solace to me. Even for 2017 Diwali, Arun gifted me a T-shirt and Manikandan gifted me the festival sweets (both expectedly non-Brahmins). My best friends in life are Balakanth, Dr. Rajaram, Mani, SDP and if there is one common denominator it is they are all non-brahmins. Caring for others and compassion does not come to this community for it is forever engaged either in Vishnu Sahashranam or Rudram chanting. The suffering of brothers or neighbours WILL NOT hit the eye; only praying to invisible gods and doing ahuti to devas and sandhya vandanams counts. No other community relates to their sisters and brothers to this sham levels of apathy than this community; there is no practice of inviting even your siblings for a festival celebration. Contrast this to Eid or Christmas where the celebration is always a group activity.

            Dalai Lama keeps saying that one can live without religion and gods but one cannot live without love and compassion which means he is not well acquainted with Tambrahms from my family or the morning walking group at Eliot’s.

            Yesterday something happened that gives me the jitters and panic attacks even now. I greeted Krishnamurthy who has quite a saint temperament. I saw him seated on the boundary wall and went to greet him.  I was all excited and foolishly prattled, “I went for a 3 day Vipassana and had such a lovely time.” Another tambrahm sitting next to him said, “Sir, why are you talking and disturbing our peace so early in the morning? Please go elsewhere.”  I said with a lot of deliberateness, “I am not offended by your grossness but let me tell you that you are an old fool.” That needless road rage cost me half a day of mental peace before I sat on the meditation mat and work to dilute these hate energies. I am now so terrified of this community that I don’t want to dare cross their path again. I have a wedding in the family to attend this weekend; it already portends a sunstroke disaster given a congregation of tambrahms in one place.

            I asked a non-brahmin friend for advice: Should I attend this function or give it a miss given that both my sisters have not shown even the slightest concern in my struggles even as I was hanging from a rope in Theni? This sister who is getting her 27 year old son married on Sunday has not called me ONCE over phone in 28 years save for a short spell of 6 months, repeat she has NOT wished me one “Happy New Year” in 29 years or her husband or her both sons ever bother to come on a telephone line.  He said, “Sathya, you may have a million reasons to hate but this is one occasion for you to build a bridge of peace. Don’t squander this opportunity. See it as a penalty corner in a game of hockey and you do stand a chance to score a goal and reconnect with your family members.” Spoken like a true non-brahmin!!!

Post Script: I make an exception here. T H Iyer mama is a tambrahm and he has gone out of his way to be nice to me. But as the saying goes: one swallow does not make a summer.  Varadan, fortunately a Chettiar, saw me struggle to find takers for my communication course. Voluntarily he gave me a cheque of 6 k saying, “I can’t find anyone to enrol for your course. Find someone worthy and let me have the pleasure of being a sponsor.” Another friend Shyam said, “Sathya, here is 12 k and use it for the venue cost.” You will not find this CONNECTION in a tambrahm though one-in-a-million T H Iyer and Shyam Krishnamurthy.  

Even as I paint this community so viciously, let me balance it a bit by not forgetting its innate virtues. This clan is very intelligent, academic learning come easy to them, they make for excellent IT backroom boys, bank managers and clerks in public sector companies, they don’t get their hands dirty in local politics etc.

One incident defines this community as someone narrated this horror to me. At M-101 on Seventh Avenue, a house was being waylaid and robbed and the ground level neighbour saw the thugs run off with the goods. She told the victim, “I saw them get away.” The victim lady asked, “Why did you not raise an alarm?” The Tambrahm lady said, “My husband was sleeping and any shouting would have disturbed him,” for a typical response you can expect from those genes.