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Ah! That must be a hot topic...
For, Google has:
About 8,950,000 results (0.18 seconds)
But I am going to talk about the Untouchability I was subjected to during my long life...and I am a South Indian Brahmin by birth hailing from a most orthodox family.
As for Domestic Untouchability, my mom is a Tiger Mom. She is 90 now and her courage is equal to the sum total of the rest of ours. She was stopped from going to school while in Class 4. She never pursued formal studies 'at home' as her younger sisters did. But she understands everything she needs to, including English which she imbibed from my HM Father. And she is a wizard at numbers. She has Gita at her finger tips and can recite many sanskrit sahasra namams like that of Lalita (not to be confused with Lolita).
Everyone in her household has to obey her dictates when they visit her in her home at Gudur...Devil may care what they do elsewhere.
First thing we learned in our childhood was that everything in the house ...Evvvverything...falls into one of two orthogonal sets: 'Madi' and 'Maila'.
It is tough to find English equivalents to these two words because the concepts themselves don't exist. The nearest thing to Madi is 'Sanctified'. Maila is opposite to that. The Hindi equivalents maybe Shudh and Ashudh.
She has her Puja Room which is Madi. None can enter it without purifying themselves like taking bath. Even then, they can't touch her idols without being initiated into her form of Puja. Once she enters her Puja Room after her bath, none can touch her till she comes out and announces that she has 'touched' Maila. If by chance a kid like me of 7 in my Maila Dress happens to touch her while playing hunt and chase, he would get a scolding...but it is worse on her...she has to take bath again and take Madi....that is an example of the Brahminical Untouchability I was and am subjected to.
After taking bath she would enter her kitchen which she sprinkles with holy water to make it Madi...and for the next couple of hours till the cooking is over and the dishes transferred to the Puja Room for being offered to her gods and goddesses and the Puja concludes, I can't touch them...they are all Madi.
There was an exception when I was a 1-year-old kid...I become Madi automatically if I am stripped stark naked...
All cooked food, after the Puja is over, becomes Maila...uncooked stuff is always Madi. For instance her Refrigerator's four compartments are equally divided into Madi and Maila. They shouldn't be mixed up. If by chance I insert the vessel of the left-over sambar into the milk compartment, all hell would break loose.
Every alternate year till her menopause, she used to sit out for three days in a month when she herself becomes Maila compared to me who becomes Madi for the nonce relative to her. And if I happen to touch her during that unholy period, I have to take bath...unless I had stripped stark naked...
During those three days during our childhood, my Father had to perform the cooking, offering, and Puja in her place; and he becomes Madi and I had to watch out.
The entire thing is much much more involved than this brief summary I gave above...but you get the hang of it, I guess.
I don't know if it can be called Reverse Discrimination...whoever heard of a pure orthodox Brahmin lad like me being subjected to this Domestic Untouchability?
Once when I was a young bachelor, I was traveling on the foot board of the Madras-Howrah Mail in a Sleeper Compartment in which I had no reservation. And I was playing hide and seek with the Conductor.
Those days I never carried a water bottle. Just get down at the next station whenever I feel thirsty and find the public tap...there were no Mineral Water Bottles then.
And the train stopped for reasons best known to herself for more than an hour at a signal in the Outer of the next station. And the afternoon sun was hitting me hard and I felt terribly thirsty. And somehow I didn't want to slake my thirst with the Sleeper Water...I wasn't thatthirsty...
So, I walked around and found an old Bengali couple drinking water from their copper vessel in a copper glass. And approached them and pleaded for a glass of water in my faltering Bengali.
The old man looked at me up and down and asked me to get a glass which he would fill up. I said I had no glass, but I was a Brahmin.
The old couple looked at me up and down and decided I was bluffing...I never looked like a Brahmin and I was shop-soiled, sitting on the foot-board for 8 hours.
They looked the other way:
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Ah! That must be a hot topic...
For, Google has:
About 8,950,000 results (0.18 seconds)
I am sure all of these 8 million sites talk about the Untouchability practiced by Brahmins on non-brahmins in India over millennia.
But I am going to talk about the Untouchability I was subjected to during my long life...and I am a South Indian Brahmin by birth hailing from a most orthodox family.
As for Domestic Untouchability, my mom is a Tiger Mom. She is 90 now and her courage is equal to the sum total of the rest of ours. She was stopped from going to school while in Class 4. She never pursued formal studies 'at home' as her younger sisters did. But she understands everything she needs to, including English which she imbibed from my HM Father. And she is a wizard at numbers. She has Gita at her finger tips and can recite many sanskrit sahasra namams like that of Lalita (not to be confused with Lolita).
Everyone in her household has to obey her dictates when they visit her in her home at Gudur...Devil may care what they do elsewhere.
First thing we learned in our childhood was that everything in the house ...Evvvverything...falls into one of two orthogonal sets: 'Madi' and 'Maila'.
It is tough to find English equivalents to these two words because the concepts themselves don't exist. The nearest thing to Madi is 'Sanctified'. Maila is opposite to that. The Hindi equivalents maybe Shudh and Ashudh.
She has her Puja Room which is Madi. None can enter it without purifying themselves like taking bath. Even then, they can't touch her idols without being initiated into her form of Puja. Once she enters her Puja Room after her bath, none can touch her till she comes out and announces that she has 'touched' Maila. If by chance a kid like me of 7 in my Maila Dress happens to touch her while playing hunt and chase, he would get a scolding...but it is worse on her...she has to take bath again and take Madi....that is an example of the Brahminical Untouchability I was and am subjected to.
After taking bath she would enter her kitchen which she sprinkles with holy water to make it Madi...and for the next couple of hours till the cooking is over and the dishes transferred to the Puja Room for being offered to her gods and goddesses and the Puja concludes, I can't touch them...they are all Madi.
There was an exception when I was a 1-year-old kid...I become Madi automatically if I am stripped stark naked...
All cooked food, after the Puja is over, becomes Maila...uncooked stuff is always Madi. For instance her Refrigerator's four compartments are equally divided into Madi and Maila. They shouldn't be mixed up. If by chance I insert the vessel of the left-over sambar into the milk compartment, all hell would break loose.
Every alternate year till her menopause, she used to sit out for three days in a month when she herself becomes Maila compared to me who becomes Madi for the nonce relative to her. And if I happen to touch her during that unholy period, I have to take bath...unless I had stripped stark naked...
During those three days during our childhood, my Father had to perform the cooking, offering, and Puja in her place; and he becomes Madi and I had to watch out.
The entire thing is much much more involved than this brief summary I gave above...but you get the hang of it, I guess.
I don't know if it can be called Reverse Discrimination...whoever heard of a pure orthodox Brahmin lad like me being subjected to this Domestic Untouchability?
Once when I was a young bachelor, I was traveling on the foot board of the Madras-Howrah Mail in a Sleeper Compartment in which I had no reservation. And I was playing hide and seek with the Conductor.
Those days I never carried a water bottle. Just get down at the next station whenever I feel thirsty and find the public tap...there were no Mineral Water Bottles then.
And the train stopped for reasons best known to herself for more than an hour at a signal in the Outer of the next station. And the afternoon sun was hitting me hard and I felt terribly thirsty. And somehow I didn't want to slake my thirst with the Sleeper Water...I wasn't thatthirsty...
So, I walked around and found an old Bengali couple drinking water from their copper vessel in a copper glass. And approached them and pleaded for a glass of water in my faltering Bengali.
The old man looked at me up and down and asked me to get a glass which he would fill up. I said I had no glass, but I was a Brahmin.
The old couple looked at me up and down and decided I was bluffing...I never looked like a Brahmin and I was shop-soiled, sitting on the foot-board for 8 hours.
They looked the other way:
Nargis quenching Raj Kapoor's thirst in Jagte Raho (1956). Their last film together
...Posted by Ishani
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