North Indians, and these days, even non-tamils accuse Chennai of being an ultra-conservative place which stubbornly refuses to give up its traditions and accept change. I could not agree more. It is the truth that they speak. There can be no doubt.
Wherein does this character, one of the many traits that sets this city apart, arise? I have spent long hours wondering why this city is so unique. It has to do with the social mindsets and the collective character of the people I suppose. While the rest of the country tries so hard (and so miserably fails) to make itself into one of those ever-so-common westernized megalopolises, Chennai dances to its own tune. People still wear shirts n lungis with the quintessential gold/silver dangling watch, they sing heavy-beats-ulla gaana songs, they have their own superstars and fanclubs, they have their own foodstuffs and most importantly, this is kind of all they want. No Chennaite would really want the city to change its character too much and become another one of those frantic also-wanna-be-important kind of cities. I always think that the single bond Chennai shares with the rest of India is the love for cricket. (So please, next time you curse the Indian cricketers, keep in mind that they are the single thin thread preventing India from falling into chaos and anarchy.) Of course, Chennai is willing to adopt changes. It took to the FM radio boom, the telecom boom etc.. like fish to water. But things like burgers, hairdyes and other such stuff make a quintessential Chennaite recoil with horror. There is a substantial class of west-influenced influential people emerging who like such things. But these people, for now at least, also make the quintessential Chennaite recoil with horror.
Though I am a die-hard Chennaite, I think it would be stupid to not recognize that the city does have its share of problems. The auto-kaara-thollai, water problem, waterways(!) problem, pathetic civic conditions in slums, the poor roads, the environmental degradation and kamal hasan’s ever increasing thoppai are social problems that are craving for attention. But being a valiban (youth) who is in the middle of his university life, one problem for me which completely out-prioritizes all of the above: THE COMPLETELY PATHETIC QUALITY OF SOCIAL INTERACTIONS BETWEEN GERLS ANDU BAAYS. Phew! Now that we are done with the rather long intro, I can go on to address the issue at hand.
I studied in a Chennai brahmin school. It was a reasonable school at least when I was young. It gave a student a lot of things that he or she needed to succeed in the globalized world of today. In other words, it was adequate in most respects, with the single most important exception being the school toilets (refer previous post on school toilets). One thing the school did not arm us with is the ability to effectively communicate with members of the opposite sex. While all cool and arrogant when it comes to talking with boys, I come out a cropper when it comes to flirting with girls. This has proved a major source of embarrassment throughout my life. And for this I blame 2 things:- Chennai in general and my school in particular.
To give you a better picture let me take you through my years in school. In the really young days, it was all fine. There wasn’t too much of a gulf between boys and girls. The podees were said with the same nonchalance as podas. Hitting, biting, scratching, shouting at girls was considered no big a deal and was done on quite a regular basis. But things changed ominously when we entered the fourth standard. The girls in my class seemed to have developed a sudden sense of kinship and had started seeing themselves as one homogeneous group, at least in relation to boys. All of a sudden, the benches in the classroom were segregated. The girls were given the finer part of the class, thanks to teachers who being all women, loved this kind of thing and actively encouraged the girls in their efforts. The boys were relegated to the less strategic positions away from windows, away from exits and most crucially closer to the teachers. The boys of course resented this and responded with an equal feeling of group kinship against the girls. There was laid the beginnings of the dharma yudhdham (war for justice).
I have always thought about why the girls had all of a sudden become so clannish. I could find little constructive explanations. It was certainly not because they had come of age and knew something about life which boys didn’t. The only explanations I could come up with was they had been heavily influenced by their mothers who had probably ganged up and asked the girls to expel boys from their lives. The mothers, who were basically of the maami type, must have felt that there daughters were growing up fast and this was the age to cut off interactions with boys if they were to avoid “dangerous” problems such as boyfriends and relationship messes. Relationships were, and still are, a big taboo among the older generation of Chennai. (I know of many instances when parents of girls took drastic steps like moving out of their houses/ changing schools to stop their girls from being corrupted by negative influences such as relationships.) Of course, reading and watching all the feminist bullshit that dominates the media, especially in the afternoon slots when menfolk are not at home, could have been a catalyst in prompting the maami mothers to warn their girls. (In fact, I’d blame these afternoon talk shows/megathodars as the single most important reason for increasing divorce rates in India).
Whatever be the reason, there now developed a cold war like situation class with girls and boys unofficially forbidden to interact with each other. With this kind of group formation, girls and boys developed their own subcultures which became increasingly divergent with time. To elaborate, the girls became more interested in cooking foods, in comparing the taste of each other’s lunches and comparing their mom’s cooking abilities, in discussing the merits of maavudu pickle over lemon pickle, in tamil films featuring actors like Madhavan and in how their family members interact with each other (These i gleaned from nuggets of conversation I overheard due to the proximity of the group of girls to my bench). In short, they were practising and honing their skills in talking paatikadhais (aka kezhattukadhais) in which they were almost certainly going to indulge in the future. Boys’ conversations were on a wide variety of topics including things like the Pokhran blasts, the situation in Serbia and the splitting of Yugoslavia, the latest video games, capitalism and communism, latest sports feeds (mostly cricket), the effects of WW-II etc.. etc.. The point being, the 2 groups were talking about totally different things and effective communication between the 2 groups was not only undesirable, but now even impossible.
This kind of situation persisted over the next 7 years at least. It peaked at around 8th to 9th standards. This was the period when most of the girls became women. They knew something about life which us boys didn’t. Well, not all. There were these over-enthusiastic boys who had a really keen interest in biology, especially of the human kind. This effect was clearly noticed when these boys, who normally were at the bottom of the grades, somehow managed to top the class in certain tests in biology. I myself was somewhat exposed. I had a rough idea, with some rough experience, but I certainly did not know the nitty-gritties of the subject. The girls became immensely proud of the fact that they were now more mature and knew stuff which the average boy had no idea about. When one of these pad companies, (Whisper I think) organised a talk in school exclusively for girls, there would be an atmosphere of total secrecy. The girls would come back with flushed faces and a strange light shining in their face as if they had just attained nirvana. Us boys would be really curious and forgetting our ego would ask the girls what the talk was about. The girls would invariably give answers like it was about the latest jewelery fads or on how to keep your nails clean or something. Of course, each girl gave a different answer and if the girls were in a group, the answers were invariably followed with low giggles and impish looks on their faces.
I myself, being a different and original thinker and all made an attempt to break the shackles of this divide. I was, I regret to say, influenced by the very basic tenets of feminist thought (only the VERY basic I assure you). I tried to borrow some notes from a girl for start. Guess what, I was instantly paired up with this girl. And for a boy that age, there could be no bigger insult I tell you. And even more shockingly, the girl almost ended up proposing to me. Of all the ridiculous things. What on earth did she have in mind anyway. I mean, what could a quintessential Chennai payal like me have done with her anyway, even if I had accepted the proposal. That day was truly a nightmare. From that day, I decided to avoid that girl, nay all girls, at all costs. And to my slight regret, I was too good to this promise. And I still am reeling from the effects.
This cold war would subside only at around 10th to 11th standards when the hormones of girls as well as guys would start kicking in big time. Suddenly, you would find girls and guys who hated the guts of each other earlier, flirting with each other coyly and talking of the most irrelevant things (yech!!). It was double standards in its purest form and made me really question the meaning of life. However the damage was done already. Most of the boys, who did not have large extended families with lots of cousins of the opposite gender found they could no more talk to girls on a friendly basis. It was always a business like tone. The few attempts at flirting would sound so half-baked that most sensible boys never attempted it. The few who did have a lot of female company however took it upon themselves to compensate these non-flirting boys. The net result was, most guys and girls kept to themselves. There were these few guys and girls who would spend their entire final years in school life flirting their (and others) heads off. This became the omnipresent, omnipotent Peter gang. Although, it must be said a few of these non-flirter, attracted by the fast life, somehow managed to bridge the communication gap with great difficulty and join the Peter gang.
I myself remained one of those non-flirters who felt clueless when confronted with the task of making small talk to girls. It was a skill that I would have preferred to have had, but would have restrained myself in exercising. Unfortunately, I was never given the choice. You can imagine the extent of the problem when I say that I never spoke a single word to my cousin from Delhi who visited and stayed in my house for a couple of days. And when I left India, to a land where girls and boys consider themselves equal in every way (!) and talk freely to each other, I felt sorely disadvantaged. I could not socialize with anyone at all even if I wished to. And, worst of all, I am relegated to having to go for an arranged marriage without even being able to give love a chance. Who is to blame for all my problems?? Good old Chennai for being so shamelessly conservative, the school for encouraging this kind of mindset, the mother maamis for encouraging their girl children and the girls themselves for being dumb enough to take their mother maamis seriously.
At least, I am learning how to flirt in my college. What is worse is many of the city boys are being denied this opportunity even in their college. Many of the city’s dime a dozen ginger-watering (injineering) colleges have completely banned interaction between boys and girls. This is totally despicable. There are places where you must adapt to global views and places you mustn’t. This kind of repression probably did not exist even 100 years back in some of the city colleges. This kind of a patronizing attitude is simply unwelcome. If you can trust a student enough to let him drive on the road without killing fellow commuters, if you trust him enough to vote a government (of course, no guarantees here that the student isn’t killing someone), I do not see why you should not trust a student in not raping every girl he has the chance to meet and befriend. It is difficult to think of who to blame. Do we blame people like Jeppiar who come with such insane rules? Or, do we blame parents who send their children willingly to such places? Or do we blame the students themselves for being soft enough to let such things happen to them? It is this kind of aagatum-vidu (chod-do i think) attitude that is one of the primary causes of all discrimination that exists today. The inability to stand up to your beliefs makes you a mental slave. But i do not wish to get too philosophical. Since, no matter how stupid one is, no one likes being preached to.
I end this post with an appeal to readers. If you are a young attractive female, and you have tips on how boys should go on about making small talk to girls with relevant examples, please feel free to email me! Its kusumpee@gmail.com.
