Of late, there is great turmoil in the Tamil Brahmin Community. There are increasing instances of Tamil Brahmin girls marrying outside the community and in places like Tirunelveli, it is alleged that Dravidian boys stalk Brahmin girls and forcibly marry them as if to prove a point that they have the strength do anything that they want.

Here are 5 reasons why this trend of inter-caste and inter-religious marriages is gaining momentum

1.      Love or Infatuation – Girls cannot differentiate

2.      Higher Education is breeding arrogance of the highest order

3.      Parents – forced to become mute spectators

4.      Superiority complex of parents of Brahmin (boys)

5.      Attempts to disintegrate the Tamil Brahmin community

Love or Infatuation

Today girls cannot differentiate between love and infatuation. Cinema (particularly Kollywood) has specialized in depicting boys on bikes with their unbuttoned shirts showing a fluff of chest hair chasing nubile nymphets. Sadly, Brahmins have become the objects of ridicule in their own state – Tamil Nadu. Girls fall for the charms of these biker boys and get sexually attracted to them. But there is a life behind sexual intercourse that lasts for a few minutes. You have to earn a livelihood and provide for the family – how many Dravidian boys can actually do that? When the sexual attraction wanes and the boy and girl get tired of their bodies, dissent sets in.

A well-known TamBrahm priest in Mumbai was shocked when his daughter ran away with her classmate (a Maharashtrian Patil). I don’t believe in discriminating people based on their color, caste or creed. However, when there is a cultural mismatch between the couple, love can rarely help sustain the marriage. This girl returned to her parental home after three years – completely battered and bruised. She filed for a divorce soon after.

My cousin brother’s daughter Sharada was dusky but beautiful. The only child of her parents, Sharada was pampered a lot. She ran away with a tailor’s son even before completing her graduation. Love is blind. Within a year, she was pregnant. The boy who never completed graduation proved to be a good-for-nothing. He was not interested in his father’s tailoring business too. Sharada had to look out for a job. Today, I don’t know where she is because I lost contact with her family long ago.

Another TamBrahm girl who fell in love with a Sindhi boy and married him would frequent her mother’s home every Friday to have a taste of home cooked food – rice, sambar and curry. Luckily, her mother lived in the same city.

I keep wondering – how do these Brahmin girls adapt to the completely different food habits of their love interest? Tamil Brahmin girls marrying Parsis, Muslims and Christians and also sub-sects in the Tamil Dravidian community – how are they able to cook mutton, chicken and beef for their husbands? Another Brahmin girl who married an extremely good-looking Muslim boy was shocked when he forced her to don a burqa after marriage. He also believed in the philosophy of “bachche bhagwan ke den hai” and this girl is now the proud mother of three children at the age of 32 years.

Higher education leading to arrogance

Many of these TamBrahm girls complete their engineering degree and go to the US and find a suitable match in the US. Or they join Infosys, Wipro, TCS, Cognizant and earn a four figure salary every month. This new found prosperity leads to vanity and also shuts up their parents who are awestruck at the salaries earned by their daughters. These daughters eventually call the shots when it comes to selecting a partner.

Parents – mute spectators

Today parents are afraid to tell anything to their daughters. They do not wish to offend them. So, they end up giving in to the demands of their daughters.  Advice is an anathema for the younger generation and so they wouldn’t listen to anything that remotely resembles an advice. Mothers fail to inculcate the right values in their daughters. When mothers do not follow appropriate menstrual hygiene, what can we expect from their daughters? Keeping a sindoor is scoffed at, adorning your hair with flowers is considered down market and mangal sutra is treated like an unnecessary impediment on the neck. Many mothers have forgotten how to wear a saree as they roam in a night gown throughout the day. The night gown long ceased to be a night wear in Brahmin homes. It has successfully replaced the saree.

Superiority complex of parents of boys

Parents of TamBrahm boys suffer from a superiority complex. They seem to be caught in a time warp. They have forgotten that even girls are now educated and are drawing a handsome salary. If mothers-in-law even think of exercising remote-control on their son’s wives, they will be shown the door. Today, Brahmin girls are smart, shrewd, independent and know what they want. This is why it is surprising (to me) that they succumb to the charms of boys outside the caste / outside the religion without adopting a strategic view of marriage.

Disintegration of Tamil Brahmin Community

Brahmins lack cohesive power. It is said that no two Brahmins can stay in the same room for long as they would soon start nitpicking at one another. Most of them are extremely selfish in nature and will hardly do anything to support a fellow Brahmin. It is a disgrace that a few Brahmin boys end up consuming meat, beef and liquor after they settle abroad. I know of a Palghat Brahmin Boy who was so fond of eating non vegetarian food (camel meat) that he would go to any lengths to consume them. He was a visiting faculty in one of the colleges where I was a faculty and he used to stink when he entered the staff room. He always had a mouth freshener spray in his pocket. He was a die-hard fan of mutton shawarmas. Another Iyengar professor, whom I know, used to relish delicacies made from fish. He made no bones about the fact that he loved sea food. With such people around, you can’t blame the world if they cock a snook at Tam Brahms.