# 8.30 verghese is talking about a 12 year old girl on marriage moving to her husband's home, and then growing up with the other children of the household. the elephant in the room is, when do the couple consummate the marriage, and additionally was this the norm among keralans. the dominant, major social group in this region of india were the nayars, a matrilineal, but not matrilocal, community. similar arrangements existed among the ezhavas [aka tiyyas], even the muslim mappilas [aka moplahs, of northern kerala] except that in the instance of the muslim mapillas the marriage included matrilocality. in these practices the consummation was subsequent to puberty as this was the age at which the family celebrated the adolescent's coming of age. among the namboodiris [brahmins of kerala] extreme primogeniture resulted in only the oldest son taking a wife, while the younger brothers had polyandrous arrangements with nayar women they visited in the evening, returning to their homes the next morning. namboodiri women not fortunate to be married [the majority] lived hidden within the home in spinsterhood. the nayar women were visited by their lovers who depending on the status of the family may be either namboothiri men, or high status nayar men, or [for the majority] other nayar men. children born of these unions were raised and part of the mother's family group. the christians were outside these traditions, having been influenced by the colonial portuguese since the 16th century, subsequently the dutch, and then the 'english'. portuguese period included the brutality of their inquisition; the english with the significant presence of the london missionary society and christian missionary society [LMS, and CMS]. in the case of the hindu, and muslim groups any pre-puberty marriage rituals were essentially merely the betrothal, the actual marriage taking place subsequent to maturity. this was the case in upper india [the gangetic belt for instance] where after betrothal the young girl [child] would continue to reside with her mother in her natal home and moves to her mother-in-law's home subsequent to puberty. the betrothal in dialect is the 'shaadi' and the move to her betrothed family is marked by the 'gauna' ceremony. for the christians, including the groups that call themselves as 'syrian christians', the vatican as well as victorian morals were the reality, their reference group. the silence about the consummation of these child marriages among the christians is no different than the silence among indians, including those from goa about the portuguese inquisition. british colonialism has been studied, discussed threadbare, but there is little about the portuguese and the barbarism of their inquisition. verghese too mentions colonial presence, 12.45, that the british had built railways primarily to transport colonial plunder and take it away to enrich britain. ironically much of the criticism of british colonialism comes from those groups, prosperous, dominant today, who had done well out of colonialism. keralan christians did so, in every way; and no keralan christian can honestly talk of british racism, colonial oppression without ending up with egg on the face. to echo verghese, the true narrative is that today's privileged indians came from groups that thrived under british colonialism, had their cake and ate it too. madras medical college, verghese's alma mater, was set up by the british in 1835 to train indians to be physicians, surgeons. at the time of verghese's education the tuition fees for a month was a princely seven US dollars. even today a month's tuition fees at the delhi school of economics of the university of delhi is 21 US cents, the annual tuition two dollars, fifty cents. most of what passes as true narrative is fiction, romance, fantasy. kamala harris talks about her father being part of the movement for freedom from british rule; the reality is that he was a comprador, a privileged member of the higher bureaucracy in new delhi's colonial government, and if he even voiced a word in support of gandhi or the nationalists, that would have been the end of his gilded life. ms harris famously in a video with mindy kaling exclaims - "so south indian is vegetarian, it is all vegetarian", [youtube 2.50]. her's is the narrative of the tamil brahmin [konkani saraswath brahmins eat fish] her mother's ritually and socially highest status caste. the remaining 99 percent of south indians relished mutton, fish, chicken, duck, and even beef.

@jeanettesdaughter

Жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for the Corrections. So many using culture to fly under false flags. Please read Caste by Isabel Wilkerson.

@karinlarsen2608

Жыл бұрын

Half the words you say must not be English. Will you translate?

@yvonneshelton2505

Жыл бұрын

Wonderful response a lot of red flags in all his interviews. I’d prefer if he just stated what level of privilege his family enjoyed And I will be reading the book “Caste”

@realpockets

11 ай бұрын

❤

Being an south Indian, the story resonates in every Indian heart . For example my grandma married in the mid 1930’s has an young 20 year old marrying an 40 year old man is quite a common scene, experiencing similar Joy n struggles ….

I can’t wait to get to BN tomorrow to get a copy. It sounds soooooo good.

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