I have always looked back with curiosity at the relations between tamil brahmin people (a good majority of the people I interacted with until my school life were tambrams) and animals. All my life, I have never seen a single brahmin household with a pet. They seem to have this totally cool love-hate relationship with any non-human living creature and it always entertains to notice such things. And the way they preach vegetarianism as a stepping stone to enlightenment is another aspect of immense interest to me. I shall proceed to narrate related experiences I have had in chronological order:-
Early in school life, I used to face this standard question:- “Yuvaara brahmin aa or non brahminaa?“. My first reaction was – what are you talking about? They would clarify:- “You eat non-vegetarian food like chicken or muttonaa?‘. I would confirm their suspicions. Then they would promptly declare that I was a non-b with a victorious smile plastered on their face. I would of course have nothing to say. Inwardly I would think these show-offs use such complicated english terms such as “non-brahmins” when they could simply use non-vegetarian. But I soon got used to this nomenclature and would proudly proclaim myself a non-brahmin everytime I was asked. Then with a scowl on their faces they would ask stuff like “How can you touch stuff like meat?” “Don’t you think you are being cruel to animals?”, “Don’t you have any heart?”…
I was a very proud lad even then and hated having people advice me on how I should conduct my life. But, I did not quite know how to respond to such arguments. This was because I was, and remain, an animal lover. Influenced by their arguments, I read a lot of literature on the subject. I soon was convinced vegetarianism had its merits. So basically, at that time, the best rebuttals I could give my friends was:- “Why do you wear leather shoes, belts etc.. and talk as if you love animals? And you claim you vegetarians are superior because you cause no cruelty to animals. Then pray tell me why your poonal has deerskin on it? (This I got from a friend who had his upanayanam) Don’t these come under the purview of cruelty to animals?” These arguments were, I admit, totally inadequate to assuage my pride. But at least they kept my friends from making further wisecrack remarks.
Their arguments nevertheless did get to me. I even asked my mom to stop preparing n-v food. She did not of course. So I just ate all the n-v curries without the meat. (Starving was not an option now was it?) And I also ate seafood. Fish and prawns seemed like fauna that were devoid of feelings like we experienced them. So they were much lighter on the conscience.
It took me quite a while to recover from this anti non-vegetarianism feelings. I came to a lot of different convictions and also read a lot of counter arguments from non-vegetarians before I changed my ways once again. I had reconverted by the time I was in my fifth standard. So this whole vegetarian binge lasted for a couple of years which, if you know how good tamil n-v food is, you will appreciate is rather long.
My school, despite its claims to being secular and inclusive, is a suththa brahmana school and does its best to promote hinduism in general, vaishnavism in particular and fringe beliefs such as vegetarianism and sloka recitation with dead seriousness. One such evil mechanism was something called the Karuna Club. At that time, I had assumed that it was an important axillary of the school named after the CM of TN. Only later did I realise that it was a meaningless vegetarianism-promotion-organisation masquerading as an organisation that wishes to show karunai (kindness) to animals. I, like a regular fool, had payed my 10 Rs (damn them) for membership out of a misplaced belief that they intended to do good work to help the city’s not so well treated animals.
At the first meeting, the topic of discussion was “non-vegetarianism and the negative effects”. I heard a lot of people talk a lot of shit about how we should all show mercy on the animals as they too had feelings and so on. It was initiated by one of those omni-present self-righteous maamis who took up employment as teachers in the school (This is in fact quite a regular phenomenon in Chennai where the educated maamis in households are encouraged to become teachers so that they can make some extra pocket money to buy their own clothes and not trouble their husbands. It is a win-win mechanism. For the school as it has to dole out less, and for the maamis because they can buy new pattusaaris and also find out about the latest fashion trends from other such maamis).
I was extremely irritated by the proceedings and tried to induce some kalavaram (trouble). I asked the teachers if it would be all right if I refused to wear my belt and shoes to school from tomorrow citing concern regarding animal rights. The teachers were taken aback. Their sole purpose in this meeting had been to promote vegetarianism. Certainly not to achieve anything concrete. They told me that I should not break the rules as they were more important. They also said they were trying to convince the school authorities of the same and expected positive results soon (yeah right!). Using mindspeak, they told me “Enna nee! Pesardhunaa Vegetarianism pathi pesu. Illati vaaya pothindu gammunu iru!” (effectively, ” talk subject or shut up!”). I obliged and talked to them about how we humans were made to be carnivores, about the theory of natural selection and about how eating n-v food does not necessarily show an irreverence to animals.
The teacher maamis at the helm did a rapid round of mindspeak to each other this time. It was along the lines of “Ennadhidhu. Utta pesinde povaan pola irukku. Idhukku ippove oru full-stop vekkanum“. (“We need to shut him up!”) Then the main maami in charge presented a long lecture that basically plagiarised whatever the students had said earlier with a lot of big words thrown in hoping that we would simply accept whatever she said because of the complexity of the words she used.
I made one last ditch effort. I talked about how people in slums were selling a lot of chicks for a few rupees after dyeing their feathers in various hues. I told her we could do something about it by complaining to PFA or Bluecross or something. The head maami decided this was going nowhere. She tut-tutted with sympathy and said we should do something about it. She then said we might talk about it in the next meeting. They may well have. But I couldn’t possibly know as I never set foot in that damn place again.
After the above mentioned imbroglio, nothing of significance happened in school really. There were these random talks by these random prominent personalities who professed that their single path to success was their vegan diets. There were the “involuntary” pukes that the t.b. classmates made whenever the n.t.b. classmates brought meat for lunch (they actually brought n.v. food just to make the t-b classmates cringe a lot of the times). Then there were these random advice giving teachers who asked us to respect the sentiments of the vegetarian folks who filled the place and not bring n-v food even though it was not banned in school. Of course this only encouraged us to bring more such foods. Anyway, nothing of significance after K-club mess.
Except maybe for the time when a cat once entered the class. The whole classroom was evacuated and emergency squads (watchman/oddjobsman) were called to evict the intruder. And things like cockroaches resulted in the benches in its immediate vicinity cleared. But it made a hilarious sight, when right in the middle of class, all these girls started becoming paranoid and trooped out of class en-masse. The teacher, being more mature, would sit on the chair and keep her legs high above ground.
Another place where tambrams give totally cool reactions is when they visit homes having dogs. Hehe. Once, a group of my friends visited my house after playing cricket in somasundaram ground. Actually they just entered the gate. My dog, which believed in ozhachifying for its master who gave it salt, let out a bark. They closed the gate again and ran like a pack of dogs back to the ground. They never visited my home again.
My father had this acquaintance, who was short, wore soda-buddis, stuttered and was effeminate (sad i know). When he visited our house, he saw the dog and hid behind my father, holding his hand, bleating and pleading to my father to save him. (“ka-ka-kapathunga ******”). I can still vividly remember my father’s face. Priceless….
An even more curious character was a friend of mine. He was a tambram who lived down the street and would visit my house really frequently. He was the fellow I would turn to for help when it was time to give my dog a bath. His mom hated him doing this kind of work. She felt I was using him as a chela for doing my own work. She was entirely justified in thinking that way I suppose. Although, I myself had always felt that he was one of the few friends my mongrel dog had in this world. That was the primary reason I called him over. Besides, his mom’s disapproval was probably the biggest reason why my friend did come to bathe my dog in the first place. This was not, however, the funny part. The most curious aspect regarding the whole affair was my friend was partly an old-world brahmin guy who was actually shit-scared of my dog and even considered the touch of my dog mildly polluting.
The whole thing was a really complicated affair really. The first step would be baiting my dog. I never collared my dog as I was of the opinion that if women can have their rights in this world, then so can dogs. So it was extremely difficult to control my dog and his movements around the house. Also, he was simply disgusted at the idea of bathing and he had a sixth sense regarding our intentions of bathing him (He has successfully evaded capture many a time.) My friend and I would have to plan this elaborate ruse to convince the wily old mongrel that we were going to do nothing more than feed him the choicest delicacies and bait him all the way to the back garden with morsels of food. There, my friend would be waiting with bucket and soap. I would then catch my dog’s neck while he was still eating and we would proceed to do the honors. My friend would help me either pour water or rub soap or hold the dog by his underarms. But he would never venture anywhere near its muzzle or crotch.
Then, after bathing him, we would release him and watch him as he went ballistic. My friend at this point would be shivering with fear and would perch upon the motor room just to be safe. My dog would run up and down the place like a maddog, drooling saliva all over and rub its entire body on the dirty ground just to tell us that we could try to clean it all we want but never really succeed. It was only after lots of coaxing and the feeding-of-remaining-morsels that my dog would be mollified. And only then would my friend feel safe enough to come down from his perch. He would go warily to get on his bike and open the gate. Just to have some fun, I would let out a loud bark and watch my friend fall to the ground with his bike and curse me. He would soon be off to cleanse himself of the impurity (abishtu) he contracted and have his mother tell him what a worthless scoundrel he was. On the whole, it was simply a majaa event.
But when it comes to brahmin-dog relations, the following event takes the cake. We were on a school vacation to Coorg. (Beautiful place. Highly recommended.) There, our owners had a set of extremely boisterous dogs which looked like alsatians but were actually just Coorgi mongrels. Those dogs were just total fun. They used to lead the way on our treks and played the role of mentors and guardians to perfection. Once, after a long trek, we all returned to a grassy spot which was our meeting point. We all lay in the grass with the dogs amidst us. This friend of mine, who was ofc tambram, was petting one of the dogs. The dog suddenly started getting mildly excited and started rubbing himself on my friend. Then we noticed that its prick started growing, and then started becoming pinkish. If you did not get it already, this dog was trying to hump my friend. The dog, from that day on (till the next couple of days, when we all left) was christened Horny (there were some girls around, so we couldn’t get too creative). Of my friend, well, the less said the better. Amean, isn’t it sufficient insult to be mistaken for a faggot dog? Saying anything more would probably be adding salt to his wounds and evil though I may be, I still ain’t that evil.
p.s.: 98% of the incidents narrated above are in 98% of the ways true. Of course, the writer took some creative liberties. So if any of you actually know my identity, please forgive the few flourishes. I meant it in good spirit.
