This from the DNA:
An enterprising NRI doctor from East Godavari district has come up with a novel idea of an all purpose and inclusive housing colony for members of the [tag]Brahmin[/tag] community near [tag]Hyderabad[/tag].
Resurrecting the traditional and conservationist ambience of the Agraharam from the Brahmin predominant East Godavari district, the colony will be spread over 1,200 acres on the city’s outskirts.
Branded Dhanwatari Agraharam, the proposed site is located 90km from Hyderabad on the Nagpur highway. All its 1,000 members are, well, Brahmins bound by the sale agreement with the promoters.
This includes observing the appropriate rituals and cultural ethos while they live in the independent homes being built for them. Smoking, consumption of alcohol and meat are forbidden in the colony.
The members should also not rear cats and dogs as these animals, true to their nature, hunt for flesh around the colonies.
Apart from sounding like a singularly boring place, it is possibly also one where most of the Hindu Pantheon will not gain acceptance, as many of them have vahans (vehicles) that are not only animals but also meat eating animals…….. the irony of it…..
I wonder whether, like in olden times, those who claim to be Brahmins will go from house to house and beseech – “Bhavati, Biksham Dehi ” – those who controlled knowledge (the Brahmins) were supposed to beg for their daily meal, so that the ugly world of commerce did not interfere with their “tapas” (endeavors).
There are whole localities in Mumbai that are ghettoized – there are zones that are exclusively [tag]Gujarati Hindu[/tag] and vegetarian. Friends of mine in Bangur Nagar have to go and ask surreptitiously ask the grocer for Ram Phal — at which point of time he stealthily packs up eggs for them….. there are societies that are exclusively [tag] Muslim[/tag], go to Orlem and you will find it exclusively [tag]Goan Catholic[/tag] … and so on…..ghettoizing always struck me as stupid – given our propensity for violence against a community or a set of ‘different people’… and it still strikes me that way……
Of course people have the right to choice, and to live the way that they want…. but i would assume that at a very basic level it is governed by the law of the land…..and this case, more than others, where the exclusion is not explicit but implicit ( they will simply not sell you property) — seems to be very, very, on the borderline in terms of legality….
Bordering on legality is only a concern if that legality can be enforced. (Yes, I know what I said…).
In Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Christian co-ops will turn down billionaire Jewish people through a very elaborate process of examining their finances and then pretending something wasn’t quite right. This cannot be challenged as they pretend it was a co-op decision taken after due process. Hah!
In Marlow, UK, an Indian friend of mine was turned down on a house-purchase by the seller who accepted 10K less from a white British buyer; and the seller then let the turned-down buyers this decision too saying sorry, I do not want to be the one to change the neighbourhood’s composition. If economic logic fails, what else can work?
That is how human beings are – herding with their own kind. ‘Let us seek our kind at a mental level’ is my motto! 🙂
Yeah, that’s sad!!
We are at once moving towards globalization on an economic/political level, and running away from it on the social/mental one…
I wonder why!!!!!
I will never forget that day. In 2004 i booked a place in Thane near Mumbai. By sheer coincidence many office colleagues too were planning a new house. I recommended the builder with whom I booked my place. Few weeks later over lunch i inquired how many had been to that place. One colleague turned to me and said that he was refused a place and with all innocence i commented, `dont tell me it is completely booked’ He just looked away and then it struck me; he is a muslim.
I was so ashamed of myself then and till date cannot get over the fact that I had booked myself at such a place. I actually went and said sorry to him. Though that was the least i could do, in reality i felt sorry and pity for the society i choose to live in today.
Wonder where we are heading with all this?
Hi Nitin
welcome to this blog….
i had a similar experience. My father and i had gone to the property fair in Bandra, a couple of years ago. we were looking to buy a home in Lonavala.
And at this little township stall just ahead of us – was this couple. they too were making enquiries. And then they asked the property guys – will you sell us property… we are Muslims…..
And this was done so matter of fact and straight … that they could be talking about the weather….It stunned me into shame… even though i didn’t do anything.
thank fully the building society i live in Mumbai is multi cultural & mutli religious, as is the place in Lonavala……
Hi Shefaly
lots of places in mumbai has problems. but much of this is subtle. They won’t rent or sell stuff to people who don’t fit into certain ‘categories’ – and this is just not about religion, but about vegetarianism….You cannot do too much about it even legally.
But this is slightly more explicit. Only Brahmins allowed…. ouch……. its a bit like a residential colony in the UK that says explicitly .. only whites allowed…
Hi Amruta,
it is sad.. that the more global that we get… the more the desire to hold on to our identity…
I doubt if this is the desire to hold on to our identity! I think it’s the guilt that we are not holding on to the values we should… and this is what pushes us into adhering to those we can…so what if they are outdated/misunderstood!!
One question I am dying to ask to this NRI doc…
does he consider himself ‘pure’ now that he has broken the age old taboo of not traveling by sea; crossing the oceans i.e. ?
Or may be he has under gone elaborate ‘shudhhikaran’ vidhee….(penance) 😉
As an Indian who has lived in the U.S. for 25 years, I cannot help noticing the fact that the person behind this self-segregating project is a non-resident Indian. Over the years I have lived here I have been appalled by the ways in which Indians self-segregate. Examples: Tamils congregating with other Tamils, bengalis congregating with other bengalis (as immortalized and glorified in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Namesake). As a Mumbaikar Maharashtrian married to a Gujarati, I found myself excluded from these groups. Soon enough, I realized that the provincial attitudes were just not for me. Now, almost all my friends are non-Indians.
Also many separatist movements are funded by non-residents. Example: Khalistan movement, Hindutva movement and even the Tamil tigers. Many years ago I attended a children’s Ramayan play at the local Hindu temple. After the play, the organizer rose and started speaking in Tamil about the need to raise funds for the Sri Lankan Tamils.
I think the people who leave the homeland only for material gain, feel empty after the materials have been gained. They think they are being better Indians/Tamils/Sikhs/Bengalis… whatever, if they become more of what they first ran away from. They try to recreate an imagined glorious past.
If the Indian freedom fighters (many of them who had lived overseas), drawn as they were, from all parts of India, had been as parochial as contemporary Indians, I wonder just how effective their struggle would have been. Not very.
Reading your post and the comments made me feel good to know that there are still some people in Mumbai who have not become self-segregating and self-exotifying zombies.
so true amruta….
hi shishir welcome to this blog…. that would be interesting, amusing and gross…. 🙁 the stuff that they make you ingest at ceremonies like this is not even funny!
Hi anon, welcome to this site…
abroad is full of indian ghettos’…… not inter city ghettos’ but within the city there would be clearly marked zones for different types of desis….
for example, in london… southall was punjabi, ealing was gujarati, pinner was bengali……there were suburbs where tams settled…. and so on….
maybe it is a homing instinct, maybe it is a ghetto instinct…. in either case it is this feeling that their cultural roots will be compromised without constant reinforcement !!
Mumbai is still mixed and cosmopolitan …… but give it time 🙂
I call these kind of practices ‘passive religious terrorism’. Im ashamed and i feel that being a brahmin, we brahmins deserve to be villainized and victimized with more reservations and sactions from our own country people for the crap a few of us are still upto.
Odd that when I wrote on this subject the reactions were vituperative to say the least, from within. I get the impression that it’s objectionable to even discuss it and is met with a position of righteous offendedness.
http://maami.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/to-letbrahmins-only/
🙂
we are all ostriches… we are liberal when it comes to others… but all our silliness will be excused as ‘traditions’ …. other people’s silliness, on the other hand, is dogmatic painfulness 🙂
The comments on this topic here are of a whole another level than at most Indian forums. When housing discrimination is discussed on Indian forums, it invariably unleashes some very nasty and fascist comments. I am glad this forum is an exception. I think any kind of housing discrimination, done by any community, is wrong. Because often this is done by people who are historically affluent, the effect of this discrimination is to prevent the free alienation of property and concentrating prime real estate in certain elite communities in cities like Mumbai.
And to make a more general point: I think its about time desis (Indian and Pakistanis) learn to treat people from other communities with genuine respect. I often see desi people- muslims, hindus, christians etc. – using conversations in ‘mixed’ desi circles to make subtle snide remarks about the others’ traditions. We have to move beyond all that. Can we all agree to respect each other and more importantly, understand the difference between sincere respect and patronizing drivel (“my hindu brother” “my muslim brother” nonsense)???
Sincere respect and a little decency towards each other will go a long way.