India Urban 1 - A Tamil Brahmin in Bangalore

Objective:   To reveal the epic in the ordinary and create a cultural and historical narrative from the inner lives' of India's urbanites, through the mediums' of photography and writing.

Subject: Mr. Suchindranath Aiyar,  2010 

Photograph credits: Ryan Lobo and others. Photographs from Mr. Suchindranath's personal albums are used  with his permission.

“He will say what a lot feel but will not express, what people are too scared to say. No magazine will ever publish your article”. 

I had been warned about meeting Suchindranath Aiyer and was intrigued. He was well known for writing letters to newspapers and fighting what he called injustice. He had taken the Bangalore Club committee to court, survived two major automobile accidents and was well known at Koshy’s restaurant for causing offense to people with his views.

Brahmins at my alma mater in Bangalore, the Jesuit run St. Joseph’s Boys’ High School were (stereotypically speaking) non athletic kids who ate curd rice in groups, were easy to bully, dressed neatly and raised their hands milliseconds faster than anyone else. They would also often sit in the second bench, not close enough but not too far away from the teacher, who usually loved them more than his own children. At least, that’s what us rowdier castes and communities would feel. 

The Tamil brahmins
 

In the early 19th century Tamil Brahmins had managed to educate themselves under the British and were hired in large numbers by the government. They acquired a near monopoly of government jobs, which led to huge resentment against them. The Justice party and later parties like the DMK ended their monopoly of government jobs and many Brahmins’ feel that they were and are oppressed by a state they once served. Thus began the great Tamil Brahmin Diaspora, which is still in effect today. Tamil Brahmins are frequently held responsible by the media and political parties in India for the historical oppression of lower-castes’. Most Tamil Brahmin families have at least one member of their family abroad, most often in the USA and very often in the Information Technology industry. 

Suchindranath Aiyer

I reach the 3^rd floor apartment of Suchindranath Aiyer and the door is fortified. A small peep window with a sliding door has the following emblem with “To lead from Darkness to Light” inscribed.

(My family crest, he later tells me) The slider slides and the door is opened. I take off my shoes and walk down a corridor lined with Stetson hats and photographs of lions standing over dead zebras. The living room has a wooden shelf stretching from one end to the other lined with college trophies for debating, elocution and quizzing. Lying against the wall next to a crutch is a Masai Maran spear from Africa, or the spear of an uninitiated Masai youth. Also present is a large Japanese painting (done by his guru I am  told).  A Japanese Wakizashi sword is displayed on the shelf and besides these two objects of combat are idols of various Hindu gods. I had not expected to see weapons so openly displayed. The room is spotless.

Suchindranath takes me for the tour. He limps badly, the effects of the automobile accidents, but his back is erect. His bedroom walls are lined with the images of Lord Ganesha, Sharada and Chandrashekar Bharati, the former head of the Sringeri Mutt, the ancestral monastic order of his lineage. An image of his Japanese spiritual master Mokichi Okada lies above the mirror, his hand raised as if to bless Suchindranath. 

“If I look in the mirror, all my teachers can look at me. I am aware they are watching me. Including myself, my greatest teacher.” 

I didn’t know you spent a lot of time in Africa?

I was in Africa for 5 years. And the old Masai men are in their philosophy very similar to Brahmins and the covenant of Brahma. A Maran, or the uninitiated Masai, once upon a time, would have to kill a lion with a spear to become a man. 

Suchindranath sits down carefully, his injured leg stretched out. I ask him if he is in pain and he says, “Only when I move” and laughs.

This notion of being Brahmin seems very important to you…

I have been brought up very deeply with this.  All Brahmins are descendants of 7 sages who lived thousands of years ago. These 7 sages received a covenant from Prajapati, or Brahma, the creator, in human form and he gave them the purpose of man, which is to build a paradise on earth on 3 pillars of truth virtue and beauty and within the ambit of divine law, charity, mercy and moderation. Whosoever takes a step towards this goal will derive indescribable joy and anyone who steps away from this will suffer enormously. This is the covenant of Brahma and most Brahmins today have no clue about this. It governs my life and is what makes me a Brahmin.

The caste system has 4 main castes, the Brahmins (priestly class), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (merchants) and Sudras (workers). All Aryas of all 4 castes have the sacred thread. Not just Brahmins. The word Arya means several things. By connotation in India it means noble. Aiyer or Iyer, my surname comes from Arya. In the south the suffix rr was added out of respect and Aryar became Iyer over time.

You speak of this with a lot of pride and even tenderness. Where does your faith in this idea come from? “Casteism“ and the idea of the Brahmin isn’t very respected today in urban India. The caste system is looked down upon by many.

The community is persecuted now. It wasn’t always this way. The Brahmins had a love hate relationship with the British. Don’t forget, it was Brahmins who the started the revolt of 1857 against the British.

We made good Clerks of the empire as we had discipline and good learning and language skills. At the same time the British had this suspicion, which became more than suspicion, which became a veiled anger. Strange as it may seem we served them well. My paternal grandfather was an engineer of the Madras Presidency and was given a title by the British. At the same time Sir Hood hated him as he was very outspoken and wrote a confidential report that said he was a communist. But to be fair and the British were far more fair than the rascals who rule us today, they gave Sir Hood a written reply and said that it was not possible that he was a commie when his two eldest sons had fought for the Emperor and were both commissioned officers in the air force, and one was a DFC.

We have served India well for generations, mind you. My grandfather owed his education to the Jesuits of Trichnapolly. A Jesuit was pleased with my grandfather and insisted that he be sent to college, as he felt he was too bright to become a farmer. He was directly recruited into the Indian Service of Engineers then. He got his title as he took the precaution to build barricades and barrages that saved much of the Cauvery riparian areas from flooding. It was a Moslem from Madurai who banged on the governor’s table and said, “How can you not give him a title?”

Who was this Moslem?

I can’t remember but his name contained Bahadur and Sait.

So when did the discrimination against Brahmins truly begin? What ensured that they left in such large numbers from Tamil Nadu?

In 1938 the British brought out a discrimination law called the Communal Gazetted Order under the Madras Presidency, to exclude Brahmins from promotion and employment wherever possible. The British were wooing the anti Brahmin justice party. This party has now turned into the Dravidian parties of Tamil Nadu. They also supported the expropriation of Brahmin land. The South Indian Brahmin is now among the poorest. The pogrom began in the south of India and it’s still going on.

You are an orphan if you are a Brahmin especially in Tamil Nadu, one of our original homelands, because of political parties that make scapegoats out of us for their political ends. We form the Diaspora now, all over the world and in Bangalore as well. We are like the Jews in this way fleeing our homeland, but we shall survive. 

What’s your understanding of the caste system? Who are you within this tapestry of caste?

I belong to the Naidrava-Kashyapa gothra. Naidrava was a rebel and belonged to this particular descent. The third sage is Apathsara, which has been woven into the tapestry of my gothra. Kashyapa is from the original seven sages.

Vadhadesha Vadama is my community. My name comes from place called Suchindran, 40 km from Kanyakumari, the tip of India. You can call it legend, but the chronicles say that we came to what is present day India from what is present day Afghanistan just before the Mahabharata war. We came south with Janameya Jaya, the great grandson of Arjuna. He eradicated snakes in revenge for his father’s death from snakebite and was therefore cursed. To escape the curse he came to the place Suchindran. We came south and settled in what is present day Madurai. On the way back to the Narmada valley we decided to stay in Madurai. This is who I am. And this story has been passed down for close to 5,000 years from Rig Vedic times, from mouth to ear, father to son, priest to child.

Why aren’t there books and just an oral tradition?

As in the Japanese Kojiki it was banned to write down history as the written word could be politically manipulated. So my parents and family priest taught me all this as a child as their community did, before them. This story has passed down orally through families, in good times and bad, through war and famine, genocide and peace.

This is so important to me. This imparting of knowledge culminates in the thread ceremony or coming of age ritual for all Brahmins. One’s father carries it out though one’s mother looks after spiritual growth before that. We are taught to recite shlokas or sacred verses and the Suprabatham by heart, and we learn our history and lineage. It’s a family effort, this education. It’s nice to know people are interested in these things. Nowadays, a lot is being lost.

Ravi and Suchindranath

So the symbols of your gothra have survived so long, without much interference?

Yes. Not suppressed by poverty or dark ages the tradition of Brahmins has been kept alive, within families and through priests. This identity, this knowledge about our selves in the universe, has sustained so many during dark ages, so many times.

Friedrich Nietzsche said, "Close the Bible and open the Manu Smriti”, which came up with the caste system”. He also criticized it for its abusive treatment of the lower castes claiming "This organization too found it necessary to be terrible." What do you think of this?

Initially the Guru of the Guru Kula or school of sorts chose the person’s caste depending on the person’s capability. Not the way it is today. Asoka the Great was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled most of the Indian subcontinent from 269 BC to 232 BC. He broke the treaty of Bharatha as the supreme council of Kashi said he was too young to rule. He embraced Buddhism, and dismantled the Aryavartha system, which included the Guru kulas' or schools for Brahmins and the armed forces. The empire fell apart subsequently. The abolishing of the guru kul system led to a situation where castes ossified and their skills of trades could be past from fathers to son now rather than from the community to the entire group. This was the beginning of the rot. These are parts of history that have been eradicated by the political class for their own purposes. We have survived though.

Would you say the “old” ways were better than what we have now?

Absolutely. Look at what we live in now. Corruption. Bandicoots. We could abolish income tax for the next century if we get back what these politicians have stolen from us. Billions. 

Suchindranath picks up a newspaper and points at an article where 336 crores or about 75 million dollars is being spent on buffets to entice government employees of the Life Insurance Corporation of India, to attend work.

Shouldn’t this idea of Hinduism, this inward observance, this meditation and your covenant of Brahma help unite different Hindus rather than separate them?

There’s no such thing as Hinduism. It’s an agglomeration of religions. They have included the murderous Thug cult and Brahmins as well. The Aryans came in and their law was imposed on a host of religions. That’s why it’s called a polytheistic religion. Us Aryans have the Sun as the living idol and we believe in Brahma. Basically. After independence the pyramid has been turned upside down. We have made sure the thugs and bandits are at the top and the intellectuals and thinkers at the bottom. We have ensured that people without philosophy and without cultural background are at the top at the cost of people with integrity.

Why don’t Brahmins fight back against these “injustices”?

We never felt it necessary to waste our lives fighting. We were skilled in other ways. We prefer, historically speaking, to leave and start again.

Most of my family is in the US. I made the mistake of not going as my parents brought me up to be patriotic. By the time I grew up and was enlightened, it was too late. One of my nephews is a neurosurgeon and the other is a radiologist. In India they would not have gotten admission to medical college, as they were Brahmins.  My daughter is in Germany doing a Ph D in robotics. She got 99 percent in her entrance exam and still didn’t get admission to medical college in India because of reservation for lower castes. I have told her never to come back to this country. The reservation system ensures that even if we do well in schools and entrance examinations our children cannot get seats in colleges, government employment or promotions.

In the 1971 Satyajit Ray film Seemabaddha the hero of the film chats with his Tamil Brahmin secretary and asks him how he deals with the vagaries of life with such equanimity. The secretary replies  “"Sir, it is simple. On a cold day, the best position to occupy is the place that is neither too close or too far from the fire. If you are too close to the fire, you could get burnt. If you are too far, you wont get warmed up!" 

The Tamil Brahmin (stereotypically) prefers not to become king, because deep inside himself he knows that when the barbarians come hurtling over the wall, it’s the kings head which rolls and after some little trauma he would be hired once again to do the accounts, or maybe robotics, diligently, as before.

Why do you think that the Brahmin does not engage in warfare or secessionism?

We are separate from this idea of India that you have. With the abilities we have we can survive and don’t need to fight. We have however fought wars and we can do whatever is required on the material plane. Though our main calling is to divine law and dharma or justice.

There seems to be a lot of hurt in what you say.

It’s not just hurt. It’s hatred. Suppressed Brahmins here keep their mouths shut as you have the Indian state, cops, goons and others against you. I don’t keep shut but most Brahmins are family people and keep shut. I don’t because the laws in India have screwed me so much I don’t care. I don’t care. But at the first opportunity I will jump ship. This country has no allegiance from any Brahmin even though my parents brought me up to be patriotic. The Indian government rubs the patriotism out of you. America is the new promised land. They reward hard work, integrity and diligence there. All Brahamanical characteristics. The Brahmin contribution to India has been immense, to the freedom struggle, to its development and we are rewarded this way, by refusing our children education, even though they deserve it.




How did the Indian state rub the patriotism out of you?

In so many ways. I was in the State Bank of India from 1977 to 1983 when I resigned and joined the IT industry. When I was in State Bank of India the transfers and positions you got and they way you were treated was absolutely ludicrous in the 70’s and 80’s. Ridiculous. And the last straw was when reservations were imposed even for promotions. This was the first animal farm amendment. Schedule 9 of the Indian constitution says that some are equal but some are more equal than others. Schedule 9 says that in law one Indian is less than another. Brahmins are the least equal of the lot. 

I hear you were slotted for a top job in the State Bank of India, and then you resigned, much to the surprise of everyone.

Yes I was slotted for great things at the Bank but I quit out of principle and this comes from my family. For us integrity is an issue. It’s been in our family for ages. My great grand father quit government service as a Tahlsaldar and went back to farming.  Integrity is an issue!

Then I joined the IT industry. I headed NIIT’s franchising and education, which I did with a vengeance. It gave career opportunity to my community. A rope to escape the enslavement of building pyramids’ for the pharaohs’ of India.

I was advisor to the Modi group in 90-92. In 92 I joined the “Quit India” movement (laughs) and after being co-chairman of the Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT) for education and software. I then went to the US. One of the cousins, doing well in the US told me that the government has done us a great favor by chasing us to America. “You got psyched by your parents. The writings on the wall are clear. India does not deserve our brains. You refused to leave and now it’s too late. You are a blind idiot.” This is what my cousin told me. When I visited him in the US the first thing he did was take me to a strip bar. To get me used to the culture, he said. (Laughs)

A stereotypical view about Brahmins’ is that they look for stability over money and ambition. Is that true?

Some of us are introverted. But we are used to adapting and finding the best of Brahmin philosophy elsewhere. I have had fabulous communion with my community in the most unlikely of places. 

So would you say that the community could exist outside this idea of India because of its philosophy and spiritual moorings?

Yes.

Where have you felt at home, the most?

I went to the US and didn’t fit, as I had too much seniority for the positions I was offered. However, in 1987 I went to London. The first time I have ever felt at home.

Why did you feel at home?

I don’t know. I never felt at home in India except for my early childhood with my grandparents. Cleanliness, orderliness, and rule of law were how the household was run. All very Brahamanical. When I got back to India from the UK, I realized that I didn’t lose my temper the whole time that I was in the UK, unlike when I was in India.

So culture shock happened when you returned to India. Not when you were abroad?

When I returned to India after visiting the UK I lost my temper for the first time in eight weeks. There was a Bombay cop at the immigration line going around and tapping everyone on the shoulder with his cane. I barked at him and the cop called his superior who left when he saw me standing there, dressed in a suit. He personified what India was to me, he reminded me of all that stinks, all that is unholy, all that is dirty, and all that the political leadership of India represents. This was in 1987.

After experiencing hygiene, order and rule of law I return and find that most Indians lacked hygiene, manners and etiquette. Ryan, You must emigrate. I am too old. You are still young enough. New Zealand is a good choice. Japan if you have the language which is hyper tolerant of eccentricity but your freedom ends where their nose begins. Switzerland is like Singapore. Intolerant. So don’t go there. In New Zealand you get elbow space and they have English, of a sort. 

Tell me about Japan? Why did you go there?

Japan was in 2002 – I am a member of a Japanese spiritual organization called

Toho-no-Hikari. Light from the east. They’re into 3 activities. Spiritual healing, nature farming and the pursuit of art and aesthetics. Mokichi Okada was and is my guru to this day. (Mokichi Okada died in 1956).

What was it that attracted you to this organization?

These people do exactly what the Covenant of Brahma expects. They are the only organization I have found that pursues the covenant of Brahma. They had an office at Richmond circle in Bangalore in 1995. However they fled India with great suspicion as they were cheated here. I followed them to Japan to persuade them to return.

What happened?

I failed. 

How did you fail?

Actually a bus I was in went off the road and my left shoulder and right leg was crushed. I took the bus company to court for 2 ½ years, as I was not eligible to receive the same amount of compensation from the insurance company that a Japanese could. The spiritual organization looked after me as a mother would look after a child during that time, as did the Tamil Brahmin community in Japan. They would get me idlis and sambhar to eat in the hospital. 

Did you win the case?

No. The Japanese Supreme Court ruled that a Japanese life is more important.

How did you feel when you lost the case?

I was deeply disappointed. In court cases no matter how right you might be, laws take their own course. You cannot go to courts expecting justice. This is what I have learned in India. But I was given a chance to fight and seek justice. I am happy for that, very happy for that. 

What’s the failure of Brahmins? Have they not shared the value system you speak of, this philosophy and learning?

I have pondered this a long time. In Mysore at one time the Brahamanical values were state values as the king Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV was under Sringeri Mutt. Brahamanical values were revered and Mysore turned into something great at the time. The head of the Sringeri mutt was like the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Ministers of Mysore State before independence included a lot of Brahmins, including my great grand father. But the point is today that the pyramid is inverted. The Brahmins are at the bottom now.

In ancient times the place of last resort, where the 5^th varie or 20 percent of taxation would go, was to the temple. When invaders or disaster struck people would flee to the temples. The temple was like a bank and the money would be spent only in the case of a disaster. There are no last resorts now. The government has been stealing the offerings at the Tirupati temple for ages. Did you read the papers yesterday? They have stolen millions.

Today the Brahmin has neither power nor wealth so why would anyone want to emulate him or uphold order, law and integrity? All anyone needs to do is see a Brahmin and know that that integrity, rule of law and competence leads to poverty and worse. There is no last resort.

Suchindranath with the present "Maharaja" of Mysore

Note: Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV was a philosopher-king, seen by Paul Brunton as living the ideal expressed in Plato’s Republic. Mahatma Gandhi referred to him as Rajarshi, or "saintly king", and some Indian researchers have often described his kingdom as Rama Rajya, an ideal kingdom akin to the perfect rule of the  mythological and religious figure Lord Rama.

What is your last resort?

My foundation from childhood, the rituals I was taught. The meditations I do. I mediate for two hours every day and commune with my Japanese spiritual teacher. This act of watching oneself, this comfort that is within, is the last resort.    

                                                                    

A Brahmin is taught to look within? To put his inner life above the outer?

Primarily. Yes.

The life of the Brahmin is the quest for the immortal in oneself. It’s not just a caste. It’s this value system and we are losing it in this banana republic. I have a name for India; I wrote a letter to the Guardian regarding the upcoming Commonwealth Games and all those articles on the corruption of its administrators. I called them the Turd World Games. We are not Third World. We are a Turd World. You know what they asked me? First they asked if I was Brahmin and then if I was Catholic. (Laughs)

In the historical immensity of India, in the midst of demographic change and migrations ferocious and quick, where dreams do not correspond with a changing context turbulent with the emergence of latent histories and hurts, Suchindranath Aiyer anchors his self to what had once given him security and a more eternal idea of himself. 

Would you say the idea of success has changed in India or how to achieve it?

How to access success has changed. It’s through criminality now.  In the West its still money and power but the middle class, the academicians still have integrity. They’re all Brahmins. And these qualities spark creativity. Your real quest is the God quest. In the Ramayana, Sita gives Hanuman the monkey god a pearl necklace out of gratitude for rescuing her from the demon king Ravanna. Hanuman bites each pearl and throws it away. Sita is upset and goes to Lord Rama. Hanuman says he opened each pearl to see if Lord Rama was in each pearl and not finding him, he threw them away. The three principles in the delineations of Brahmanism encompassed in one verse, which he then utters.

When I identify myself with the body you are the creator and I am eternally your devotee

When I identify myself with my spirit I am a spark of the divine fire you are

When I identify myself with my atma you and I are one.


 What’s the atma?

That’s the soul of the soul. The Japanese have this as well. What is valued in this country is wealth and power. These Naxalites will destroy India and from that horror, that blood letting will hopefully arise a hatred for injustice. A hatred. And then there will be hope.

That’s quite an extreme view unlike the stereotypical Brahmin view of non-violence. Thoreau says that one needs to have shelter, food and clothing and only then can one aspire to greater ideas? Wouldn’t you say things are slowly balancing out?

In India the rulers are addicted to crime and corruption and who has to pay are the poor and helpless and they are growing in numbers. I think there needs to be a change in what rules this country. I would like it to be ruled by a truly democratic constitution where all Indians are equal under the law. None of this reservation.

Two days later I meet Suchindranath at the Imperial restaurant with his childhood friend Ravi. He announces that he plans to visit “old ghosts” on a walk through Bangalore.  We pass by the War Memorial built by the British to honor the dead of the Great War, and he points out another smaller and very new memorial set up by a construction company next to the imposing British war memorial. He says the monument built by the construction company needs to be destroyed, as the company’s logo is larger than the message below it.

Suchindranath: This needs to be blasted.

Ravi: I am glad that those DMK chaps screwed you fellows.

(Both of them laugh)

The streets are being repaired. We walk by construction rubble and open manholes.  Opportunity has beckoned and for millions of people Bangalore is a point of arrival and they have arrived with the relatively bad taste of the new. Communities and histories held in limbo by poverty or lack of opportunity and education are waking up and moving forth. He is pleased to tell his own story. It seems to me that this act of telling his story to me is allowing him to create a new level of cohesive meaning from disparate incidents, ostensible failures in his own life, which I am having the privilege of hearing. He limps past construction material lying by the roadside.

“Neither China nor Pakistan would want to waste ordinance on India. It’s rubble already.”

Later we re enter the sanctuary that is his home and I sit on the sofa beneath his trophies from debating, elocution and drama competitions in college. Symbols of a simpler time.

Stereotypically speaking, the Tamil Brahmin does not fight against the injustices of history. Their adaptability seems at odd with some of your qualities like stubbornness and hatred as you say, of injustice. The Tamil Brahmin supposedly prefers to function from behind the scene, rather than from the front. Where did you get these fighting qualities from?

At the age of five my grandfather had gotten me a cricket set and he said that I had to bat last as it was my cricket set which my friends and I would play with. I found this unjust. I was terribly offended and this was the start of my rebellious streak. To date I prefer to bowl rather than to bat. My hatred of injustice and cricket began with that incident.  

My stubbornness came from the Boys Scout camp at Doddballapur. A lot of the kids knew how to swim, as their parents were members of the Bangalore club at the time. I taught myself by jumping off the deep end without anyone egging me on. I thought to myself, you’re going to learn how to swim or drown, and jumped into the deep end.

You seem very self-aware. Have you ever considered unlearning some qualities, which might have caused you trouble?

A huge superstructure is built on these critical incidents. I would lose a lot of things about myself. I love my hatred of injustice. I don’t want to lose it so it’s more a question of accepting myself now.

You know, I empathize with the Kashmiris' and the Manipuris’ because they fight injustice. Like so many of India's separatist’s movements, I would take up arms if I were pushed into a corner like these people have been. But remember that I have been brought up in parts of old Mysore state with it’s Brahamanical values. Life’s not too bad… not too bad yet, to take up arms. 

What about your automobile accidents? You had the bus accident in Japan and a head on collision with a 16 wheeler in Kenya?

Yes, I went head on into a 16-wheel truck in Kenya on the Mombasa Nairobi highway to avoid going off a cliff at a place called M’teito Andei, which would have killed three friends and myself in the car. We had a cliff face on one side and an abyss on the other.

That took something, to go head on with a huge truck like that, but I did it and my friends survived. Later the doctors told me that I had braced myself too hard against the brake and gripped the steering wheel too tight and had absorbed the whole shock of the impact with my hip, which was shattered. If I had only relaxed, I would not have been injured.

You know, M’teito Andei means places of eagles. 

So if you had relaxed and not fought the impact you might not have gotten so badly hurt.

Yes.

Suchindranath gets up and picks up the Masai Maran spear. He demonstrates to Ravi and myself how a Maran youth would hold the spear against a charging lion by bending over and using his foot to allow the other end of the spear to be driven into the ground by the charging big cat.  Ravi loses interest and wanders off to the kitchen.

“Like this, when that lion charges, you point the spear at him, hold tight and brace yourself.”