http://maami.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/to-letbrahmins-only/
To Let:Brahmins Only March 27, 2008 by maami "We are Brahmins, so you'll have no problem", Amma flashed a wide pandering smile at Mrs.J. We had left Bangalore for Madras to pitch tent "permanently". We went on to rent a small pad with a terrace from Mrs.J in Mandavelli on a secluded lane called Sambandam Street. The landlady had a small notebook paper stuck on a cardboard that swung on the gate of her house. It simply said in black ink:'To Let, BRAHMINS ONLY'. I was too young and ignorant to find anything odd about a community, that applauds itself for its First World thinking, progressive ideals and ready to move with the times, to be blase about advertising rentals in such a segregational manner. And in the late 1970s and early 1980s Madras, the community was still smarting from a bur on the flesh for the angry sloganeering, insulting grafittis and ideological political marginalisation that were insuniating and exasperating. The practice of keeping away other community people from renting their homes was probably the last vestige of untouchability that would serve to prove the exclusivity they claimed and proclaim their silent infuriation. Of course, the pious party-line in public was that the kitchen, that often housed a small shrine for the Gods, should not be polluted by the cooking of blood, bones and flesh and it was vegetarianism that was the real reason behind the reservation.Whichever. Many years passed and much water had dried on the Cooum River bed. Times had changed, old battles had passed on to newer ones and we were "wery madern' and 'politically affirmative'. The new acronym that had entered drawing-room discourse was an indication of that. It was mentioned under the breath or muttered amongst their own. The new term used was, "Avalaam" while referring to a particular sari, a tradition, a taste, a habit or a characteristic. And then there came a time when Amma and Appa retired into a small flat looking out to the Bay of Bengal on the East Coast Road. It meant that our house and an old flat were up for rent. The flat was not a problem. Friends, neighbours and acquaintances claimed it for rent. Between a Mangalorean Rao, a Saurashtrian Brahmin and a regular old Mylapore family as tenants, the flat remained, "unsullied" and "unpolluted". The house, though, remained an issue. While Appa squirmed silently and looked at me guiltily, Amma announced that he place an advertisement in The Hindu. "Brahmins only", she insisted it be worded in the advertisement. I pulled my knife out. She acted haughty."I am very modern, but you see, the house shares a compound wall with a temple and if the tenants chuck pieces of bones and meat and all, it will pollute and descecrate the temple", she reasoned. Appa, ever her noble protector, said meekly:"It's her house. I gave it to her as a gift." Aargh. I went snogging out on the beach with my "Avalaam" boyfriend and it tasted sweeter than any panchamritham prasadam that Amma would have bought home. But I digress. Back to Amma's approved tenants. The first left within a year to Muscat. They vacated the house after breaking the toilet, shattering the glass-case and leaving the concrete broken in the garage. The next didn't pay up rent regularly. The third, an advertising executive, phoned in and complained of 'Amai' (tortoise) entering the garden. Complained that it was a 'bad omen' and 'aathukku aagadu' and left. With his growing Parkinson's and the frequency of shifting tenants, on his last leg of sanity, Appa sold both the homes. Have things changed today? Slowly and recultantly, the last vestiges of exclusivity are dropping. Amma's youngest and most orthodox and traditionalist brother has rented his flat in Palaymkottai to a Muslim family from Pathamadai. He resists eating off their plate, but finds his tenant has endeared himself to the family. I hate to admit to smugness, but Amma bereaved and distraught, didn't object this time, to the new meat-eating tenants who now reside in her flat.
