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Sunanda K Datta-Ray wrote that there is no caste in Bengal.
Of course there is! What he meant was that there is no caste-discrimination in Bengal...that is right I guess.
When on 1 May 1965, I walked into the HoD's Office to join my duties as a new Associate Lecturer at IIT KGP, Prof H N Bose smiled at me and said how-do-you-do and all that, and called out to our clerk (in Bengali):
"Dulal! Here is our new teacher. Help him with the formalities"
And a short, fair, thin gent about my age came up and led me by hand and we walked to what he termed the Establishment Section three flights of stairs above us. And he talked to me in English and this is how it went:
"You are Sastry. Are you related to our Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Sastry?"
"No...he is from UP...I am from AP...he is a kayasth (Srivastava)...I am a brahmin"
"How nice! I too am a Bengali brahmin (Ghoshal). There is a Muslim brahmin from UP in our Department. His name is Abidi"
"Are there brahmins among Muslims?"
"Oh, yes!...he is a perfect gentleman from Lucknow and speaks perfect Urdu. His wife is an Urdu poet"
That was news to me.
Prof Abidi met me on my very first day and took me to the canteen for tea...along with Prof Bidhan Mahanty. I was told it was a ritual to greet newcomers in the faculty by a visit to the canteen...Orientation Ceremony. Since then Abidisaheb and I must have traveled to the canteen dozens of times.
On one of our visits to the canteen a decade later, he asked me a quiz question:
"In UP we have brahmins called Chaturvedi, Trivedi and Dwivedi. Chaturvedi (Choubey) is one who read all the 4 vedas. Trivedi (Tiwari) is one who read 3 vedas. And Dwivedi (Dubey) is one who read 2 vedas. Can you tell me the title of a UP brahmin who read no vedas at all?"
"I don't know"
"He is called Abedi"
"Ha...Ha! Abidisaheb...Can you tell me what a brahmin who read only 1 veda is called?"
"I don't know"
"Bedi"
...And then Prof Debabrata Basu joined me in my office as a co-tenant (for 2 decades). He said Basu and Bose are the same thing...like curd and yogurt. And that his lineage is from Ramram Basu, a famous scholar who taught William Carey. And that this Ramram Basu was also famous for his pranks on one and all including his British employers.
And that Basus are kayasthas of Bengal, known for their cleverness. He also taught me a 4-lined verse which I forgot unfortunately. It said that Basus, Mitras, Ghoshes and Dattas are the most famous Bengali kayasths. And that each one of them tries to outwit the others. It was meant as a joke on our Prof G B Mitra.
And then there was this Prof S K Dutta-Roy, senior to me by a decade. We became friends. Those were the troubled years when Prof G S Sanyal took over as our Director and finally outwitted his opponents by the cleverest of stratagems. And Prof SKDR told me that all Sanyals are Baren Brahmins known for their guile, and the joke that if you hit a nail into a Baren Brahmin's head, it comes out as a screw when you pull it out. And that Bhaduris, Lahiris, Bagchis and Moitras (not to be confused with Mitras) are all Baren Brahmins...watch out.
I knew from my conversations with my Bengali friends that Chatterjees, Banerjees, Mukherhjees, Gangulis, Chakrabartis, Bhattacharyas are all kulin Bengali Brahmins. And there was this Prof Bhattacharya as my neighbor. One day we were chatting across the fence and we got talking about Prof G S Sanyal. And I narrated to him the joke about Baren Brahmins and the nail that comes out as screw. My neighbor's face fell...I didn't know why.
Much later I was told that this Bhattacharya is a Baren Brahmin...some goof-up there.
Prof Dutta-Roy also told me that double titlers, like our renowned Ex-Diro Prof S R Sengupta, are Vaidyas (Boddis) of Bengal. And that Boddis were originally brahmins but revolted and separated from them.
So I thought my guide, Prof S Datta Majumdar, was a boddi since he had the double title: Datta and Majumdar. Only, he turned out to be a kayastha. Also Dutta-Roy ;)
My hotchpotch half-knowledge of Bengali castes helped someone in dire need the other day in Hyderabad. It was this way:
A while ago, a double-barrel-titled Bengali here lost his father and he was looking for a Bengali Pundit who would perform the cremation rites. But found that none of the dozens of Bengali pundits here were of much help...they promised to do all the post-cremations rituals for all of 13 days but not the cremation itself. And you know...cremation is much more urgent than the leisurely post-cremation rituals.
So the matter was brought to our notice asking if we could be of help since my son cremated his mom recently here. So we called up our Andhra Brahmin pundit and asked him if he could help a Bengali gent in distress.
And he said he never performed the rituals of non-Andhras and asked if this Bengali gentleman is a brahmin, since his surname sounded like one of our Baniyas...and he didn't know anyone who cremated Banias here.
So I recalled my Boddi half-knowledge and assured our pundit that the gent was indeed a brahmin and is supposed to wear a sacred thread...which I too am ;)
Matters were settled on mobiles in minutes and the cremation went through without a hitch before sundown...cremations here are done only during daytime unlike at KGP.
Then on the Bengali pundits of Hyderabad took over and reassured our Boddi gent that there is very little difference in the cremation mantras and rituals between Andhra Brahmins and Bengali Boddis.
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Of course there is! What he meant was that there is no caste-discrimination in Bengal...that is right I guess.
When on 1 May 1965, I walked into the HoD's Office to join my duties as a new Associate Lecturer at IIT KGP, Prof H N Bose smiled at me and said how-do-you-do and all that, and called out to our clerk (in Bengali):
"Dulal! Here is our new teacher. Help him with the formalities"
And a short, fair, thin gent about my age came up and led me by hand and we walked to what he termed the Establishment Section three flights of stairs above us. And he talked to me in English and this is how it went:
"You are Sastry. Are you related to our Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Sastry?"
"No...he is from UP...I am from AP...he is a kayasth (Srivastava)...I am a brahmin"
"How nice! I too am a Bengali brahmin (Ghoshal). There is a Muslim brahmin from UP in our Department. His name is Abidi"
"Are there brahmins among Muslims?"
"Oh, yes!...he is a perfect gentleman from Lucknow and speaks perfect Urdu. His wife is an Urdu poet"
That was news to me.
Prof Abidi met me on my very first day and took me to the canteen for tea...along with Prof Bidhan Mahanty. I was told it was a ritual to greet newcomers in the faculty by a visit to the canteen...Orientation Ceremony. Since then Abidisaheb and I must have traveled to the canteen dozens of times.
On one of our visits to the canteen a decade later, he asked me a quiz question:
"In UP we have brahmins called Chaturvedi, Trivedi and Dwivedi. Chaturvedi (Choubey) is one who read all the 4 vedas. Trivedi (Tiwari) is one who read 3 vedas. And Dwivedi (Dubey) is one who read 2 vedas. Can you tell me the title of a UP brahmin who read no vedas at all?"
"I don't know"
"He is called Abedi"
"Ha...Ha! Abidisaheb...Can you tell me what a brahmin who read only 1 veda is called?"
"I don't know"
"Bedi"
...And then Prof Debabrata Basu joined me in my office as a co-tenant (for 2 decades). He said Basu and Bose are the same thing...like curd and yogurt. And that his lineage is from Ramram Basu, a famous scholar who taught William Carey. And that this Ramram Basu was also famous for his pranks on one and all including his British employers.
And that Basus are kayasthas of Bengal, known for their cleverness. He also taught me a 4-lined verse which I forgot unfortunately. It said that Basus, Mitras, Ghoshes and Dattas are the most famous Bengali kayasths. And that each one of them tries to outwit the others. It was meant as a joke on our Prof G B Mitra.
And then there was this Prof S K Dutta-Roy, senior to me by a decade. We became friends. Those were the troubled years when Prof G S Sanyal took over as our Director and finally outwitted his opponents by the cleverest of stratagems. And Prof SKDR told me that all Sanyals are Baren Brahmins known for their guile, and the joke that if you hit a nail into a Baren Brahmin's head, it comes out as a screw when you pull it out. And that Bhaduris, Lahiris, Bagchis and Moitras (not to be confused with Mitras) are all Baren Brahmins...watch out.
I knew from my conversations with my Bengali friends that Chatterjees, Banerjees, Mukherhjees, Gangulis, Chakrabartis, Bhattacharyas are all kulin Bengali Brahmins. And there was this Prof Bhattacharya as my neighbor. One day we were chatting across the fence and we got talking about Prof G S Sanyal. And I narrated to him the joke about Baren Brahmins and the nail that comes out as screw. My neighbor's face fell...I didn't know why.
Much later I was told that this Bhattacharya is a Baren Brahmin...some goof-up there.
Prof Dutta-Roy also told me that double titlers, like our renowned Ex-Diro Prof S R Sengupta, are Vaidyas (Boddis) of Bengal. And that Boddis were originally brahmins but revolted and separated from them.
So I thought my guide, Prof S Datta Majumdar, was a boddi since he had the double title: Datta and Majumdar. Only, he turned out to be a kayastha. Also Dutta-Roy ;)
My hotchpotch half-knowledge of Bengali castes helped someone in dire need the other day in Hyderabad. It was this way:
A while ago, a double-barrel-titled Bengali here lost his father and he was looking for a Bengali Pundit who would perform the cremation rites. But found that none of the dozens of Bengali pundits here were of much help...they promised to do all the post-cremations rituals for all of 13 days but not the cremation itself. And you know...cremation is much more urgent than the leisurely post-cremation rituals.
So the matter was brought to our notice asking if we could be of help since my son cremated his mom recently here. So we called up our Andhra Brahmin pundit and asked him if he could help a Bengali gent in distress.
And he said he never performed the rituals of non-Andhras and asked if this Bengali gentleman is a brahmin, since his surname sounded like one of our Baniyas...and he didn't know anyone who cremated Banias here.
So I recalled my Boddi half-knowledge and assured our pundit that the gent was indeed a brahmin and is supposed to wear a sacred thread...which I too am ;)
Matters were settled on mobiles in minutes and the cremation went through without a hitch before sundown...cremations here are done only during daytime unlike at KGP.
Then on the Bengali pundits of Hyderabad took over and reassured our Boddi gent that there is very little difference in the cremation mantras and rituals between Andhra Brahmins and Bengali Boddis.
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