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Jyotiraditya: My Mother is wrong, I am not an only child

Recently we were visiting the home of an eminent retired High Court judge from Kerala about whom I have written in this post. So the lovely wife of the retired HC judge was talking to Adi and making tea when she mentioned that it must be very lonely for Adi to be the only child and I mentioned that he has a very solid network of friends in the society building where we live.

The moment I said that, Adi jumps up and says to her, almost angrily, "My mother is wrong. I am not an only child. I have two brothers and two sisters - the only thing is they aren't staying with us but they are my brothers and sisters. I am not an only child."

I told her very softly that Adi is referring to his cousins and she smiled at me lovingly.

Seeing the passion and conviction with which Adi was saying this, she gently and lovingly said to him, "What a lucky boy you are to have two brothers and two sisters." 

The way Adi looks and values his relationships is exactly how I did at his age, so long ago. I love that about him too. May his conviction, belief and love grow stronger and positive across the years so that he learns to trust in his intuition always in all relationships. 



Comments

Shilpa Garg said…
Awww!! That's so sweet and awesome! Hugs to lil' Adi and the Mom too for nurturing the lil big boy in such a wonderful way! :)
Asha said…
How lucky he is too have two bros and two sis and to have a mom like you who has built in such good values and culture. God bless him!
KParthasarathi said…
It is heartening to hear about the young boy's attitude.Such traits are not acquired but inborn.
Thanks sir, I'd definitely pray so too.
Thanks Asha. As a mom, I just believe that there's so much we can learn from kids if we open our hearts to them and let go of our egos. Tough call but it works.
santhosh kumar said…
The savarnas( the term was mainly used by namboothiris to denote themselves earlier) were much interested in creating castes and new subcastes.this created a lot of subcastes amoung the so called upperclass.bhrahmins of kerala was also divided by different subcastes.the top most is the wealthy namboothiris called as addyians and poor was called aasiyans. As found every where poor did't got much respect and their situation did't improved much. They were given jobs to assist wealthy namboothiris as servants.in the 20th century there were many namoothiri hotels which served food for money.but at first they were mainly intented for the bhrahmins,some permitted upto nairs but for them seperated place and plates were used.but avarnas were not served there.at that time all the workers in these hotels were namboothiri. Later it these namboothiri hotels meant reduced to the hotel name ,that means the workers were taken from all castes even from other religion too. All were allowed to dine there.

Even with highest social status the customs of bhrahmins of kerala was too pathetic. Only the first son of the family was allowed to marry.other sons have no right to marry.but they can mate with any women upto nairs. Not all but some kshatriya families of kerala were ready to allow their ladies to enter in relation with these namboothiris . the most infamous amoung these family was the cochin rulers or thrippunithura kovilakam.these practice created a lot of branches headed with seperated women. The namoothiris which entered in relation with these royal families were like in service or like given job.they were treated well money was given to them and to their familes. Ofcourse these money came from the state treasury and to the treasury from the working people.the income generating people were the farmers , traders and few industrialists.they made the majority of kerala population and consists mainly of so called avarnas which included ezhavar,pulayar and others.but they were not given recognition and rights. Ezhavars which forms the largest community of kerala is belived to be the Buddhist followers earlier.learning institutes were maintained by them which offered studying sanskrit and tamil languages. Medical treatment was one of their main occupation.anyone who is brilliant enough to learn sanskrit and medicine was allowed to learn in these institutes and can become a doctor. They were revered by the royal families and the namboothiris even during the period of untouchabilities. But the rules for untouchability was always relaxed when question of survival and workability comes.numerous stories and court case records shows these practices. Trade and factories were mainly run by the members belonged to this caste.
Anonymous said…
the ambalavasi caste in kerala is that caste consists of people who were living doing jobs related to temples.this caste consists numerous subcastes.they doesn't were the owners or authorities of the temples but were doing the jobs such as cleaning,sweeping,singing,using drums and other instruments etc.they were not allowed to do the poojas which was done mainly by the bhrahmins.the bhrahmins many times were the authorities of these temples and they were the people who handle the income to the temple.at that time the temple income was mainly from the state treasury,given by the kings.this helped the owners or namboothiris to live well without necessary for doing any useful work.those persons living with jobs related to temples or ambalavasis were actually were dependentant on bharhmins as they can be denied job at any stage by these bhrahmins.so naturally they tried to keep the bhrahmins satisfied.they too practised the sambandam or were ready to entertain namboothiris with their women lot.bhrahmins entered into sambandan or a concubineship with these familes.it was not considered or accepted as marriage by the bhrahmin comunity.still the ambalavasis prefered to get a bhrahmin relation for their woman. this was way they have found to keep their job secure and income intact.so they prefer to have bhrahmin relative.if the namboothiri was a learned man and have income it was an added advantage for them.but generally if not all ,the members of ambalavasi castes are very poor and lagged behind in kerala.this was not because of any social backwardness but because of their way living superstitions.many tend to pursue their traditional occupation which have less income.their reluctance to modern education was also another reason.still they are not too poor to live as they can live by finding job and food from the temples even now.
rajeev kumar said…
but why the caste name nair got so famous and became known to all keralites despite kerala was divided in different countries ruled by many kings.why was the caste name nair be selected and claimed as all same from kshtriyas to bottom most caste of savarnas as nair.its one of the classic examples which shows how the mind set of people can be changed with education which was far distanced or have no corelation to the actual facts.it has been shown earlier that the word nair itself was not considered as a good word and it contained a bad meaning attached to it and how untiringly many have tried to give new meaning to it.the word was not mentioned in any official records such as stone inscriptions,land records ,orders from the king etc.one other reason for this may be it denoted a very small subcaste mainly employed as house hold servents.even no good literature in the medivial kerala used that word.but there were some reference to this caste indirectly in some literatures such as chambu set of literature which uses a mixture language of malayalam and sanskrit ,which was more popular amoung the bhrahmins of kerala.but from the second quarter of 19th century this word nair became popular slowly.this was because of the modern english education.some how when portughese came to kerala they some how got the idea that the soldiers of kerala were all nairs.may be they called the soldiers as nairs.in the books and writings they wrote they used the word nair to denote the soldiers of kerala.they being came from a thick and last era of fedualism,where class division of society was strong ,they were easy pray to the misunderstanding that nairs where the soldiers or nairs alone where the soldiers of kerala.this misconcept was passed on to others and was continued by other europeans such as detch ,english and french.these other later europeans learned about kerala from the writings of portughese.they too absorbed the prejudice that nairs were all soldiers or the kerala soldiers were all nairs.this passed unchecked so mcuh that in almost all the writings the word nair was used to denote the army of kerala.when the english education was introduced in kerala in the second decade of 19th century ,this same misconcept was later taught to the kerala children in schools and thus the misconcept and prejudices were taught to the actual people itself.and above all even today many learned persons and even historians thinks that nairs are the only soldiers of kerala.But in reality many nairs were not soldiers or have nothing to do with warfare.

it have been shown earlier that the army commander of marthanda varma was anantha pathmanabhan who was a channan or nadar and not a nair.he was also the commander of the personal body guard battalion of the king.it consists of 36 warriors selected by the king personnaly.they were all channars.in many victorious battles conducted by marthanda varma the commander was ramayyan who was not a nair.his caste is not known clearly.he was born in tamilnadu and came into the serice of the travancore king at a very young age.for many years he was considered as a bhrahmin,but some have pointed out that he belonged to the maravar community of tamilnadu.what it is clear is that he is not a nair .kanakku ,pillai,chempaka raman etc were given as titles to the courters or to those who were in service or to those who have done service to the king. it was not given on community basis nor to a particular caste.it cant be competetant persons are to be taken to service and it cannot be found from a particular caste,not always from upper caste .
vinny said…
Sweet pure sense of family in your son...just realised that Adi refers to Jyotiraditya, i thought he was Aditya:)

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