yAthum UrE, yAvarum kELir (world is my home and we are a global family)
Narayanan Kannan
realize at the time that this was going to be the history of my
family.
Last week, we celebrated the wedding of my daughter, Pallavi. A
brilliant student, she had won scholarships to Oxford University and
the London School of Economics. In London, she met Julio, a young man
from Spain. The two decided to take up jobs in Beijing, China. Last
week, they came over from Beijing to Delhi to get married. The wedding
guests included 70 friends from North America, Europe and China.
That may sound totally global, but arguably my elder son Shekhar has
gone further. He too won a scholarship to Oxford University, and then
taught for a year at a school in Colombo. Next he went to Toronto,
Canada, for higher studies. There he met a German girl, Franziska.
They both got jobs with the International Monetary Fund in Washington
DC, USA. This meant that they constantly travelled on IMF business to
disparate countries. Shekhar advised and went on missions to Sierra
Leone, Seychelles, Kyrgyzstan and Laos. Franziska went to Rwanda,
Tajikistan, and Russia.. They interrupted these perambulations to get
married in late 2003.
My younger son, Rustam, is only 15. Presumably he will study in
Australia, marry a Nigerian girl, and settle in Peru.
Readers might think that my family was born and bred in a jet plane.
The truth is more prosaic. Our ancestral home is Kargudi, a humble,
obscure village in Tanjore district, Tamil Nadu. My earliest memories
of it are as a house with no toilets, running water, or pukka road.
When we visited, we disembarked from the train at Tanjore, and then
travelled 45 minutes by bullock cart to reach the ancestral home. My
father was one of six children, all of whom produced many children (I
myself had three siblings). So, two generations later, the size of the
Kargudi extended family (including spouses) is over 200. Of these,
only three still live in the village. The rest have moved across India
and across the whole world, from China to Arabia to Europe to America.
This one Kargudi house has already produced 50 American citizens. So,
dismiss the mutterings of those who claim that globalisation means
westernisation. It looks more like Aiyarisation, viewed from Kargudi
What does this imply for our sense of identity? I cannot speak for the
whole Kargudi clan, which ranges from rigid Tamil Brahmins to
beef-eating, pizza-guzzling, hip-hop dancers. But for me, the
Aiyarisation of the world does not mean Aiyar domination. Nor does it
mean Aiyar submergence in a global sea. It means acquiring multiple
identities, and moving closer to the ideal of a brotherhood of all
humanity. I remain quite at home sitting on the floor of the Kargudi
house on a mat of reeds, eating from a banana leaf with my hands. I
feel just as much at home eating noodles in China, steak in Spain,
teriyaki in Japan and cous-cous in Morocco. I am a Kargudi villager, a
Tamilian, a Delhi-wallah, an Indian, a Washington Redskins fan, and a
citizen of the world, all at the same time and with no sense of
tension or contradiction.
When I see the Brihadeeswara Temple in Tanjore, my heart swells and I
say to myself "This is mine." I feel exactly the same way when I see
the Church of Bom Jesus in Goa, or the Jewish synagogue in Cochin, or
the Siddi Sayed mosque in Ahmedabad: these too are mine. I have
strolled so often through the Parks at Oxford University and along the
canal in Washington, DC, that they feel part of me. As my family
multiplies and intermarries, I hope one day to look at the Sagrada
Familia cathedral in Barcelona and Rhine river in Germany and think,
"These too are mine."
We Aiyars have a taken a step toward the vision of John Lennon.
Imagine there's no country, It isn't hard to do. Nothing to kill or
die for, And no religion too.
My father's generation was the first to leave the village, and loosen
its regional shackles. My father became a chartered accountant in
Lahore, an uncle became a hotel manager in Karachi, and we had an aunt
in Rangoon.
My generation loosened the shackles of religion. My elder brother
married a Sikh, my younger brother married a Christian, and I married
a Parsi. The next generation has gone a step further, marrying across
the globe. Globalisation for me is not just the movement of goods and
capital, or even of Aiyars. It is a step towards Lennon's vision of no
country.
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope one day
you'll join us. And the world will be one.........
Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyer
The Times of India
--
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." -Gandhi
Innamburan Innamburan
இன்னம்பூரான்
Narayanan Kannan
பெண் தந்த கல்யாணப்பத்திரிக்கையில் இப்படி இருந்தது:
நினைவில் வாழும் திரு.கிருஷ்ணன் கிட்டு ஐயர், திருமதி.லட்சுமி பலயான் முதலியார்.
மணப்பையன் வகையறா..
நினைவில் வாழும் திரு.சொ.பெத்தபெருமாள் கவுண்டர்
திருமதி அம்மாகண்ணு முதலியார்
No wonder scientists could not distinguish among Indians any Aryan or
Dravian genes. We were and are a melting pot...all the time. (though
it is hard to accept)
Kannan
karthi
share his wonders, and dream his dreams, inspite of the
fact that I cannot claim memebership to Aiyerhood.
I am sure I am not alone in this. There must be many in
this forum alone.
But come to think of it, Swaminathan's experience is nothing
unique or new. Still the wonderment is pulpable. A revolution
within the past 50 years.
I have here a friend, Sulaiman Abdullah, a preeminent lawyer,
who is from an Aiyer family, married a Muslim Malay, and for
a while went by the name of Sulaiman Aiyer. His nephew,
Vengadesan Aiyer married a Christian, and their son, known as
Martin Vengadesan, a journalist, married a Chinese. Martin wrote a
grand piece of essay on the lineage of his family. Very
interesting.
Malaysia is already a microcosm of the world Swaminathan talks about.
Re.Ka.
தாரகை
pathiththa Aiyer:-)
Thought the following will be a diversion, it could be an eye opener
for one & all about our poets & their reasoning of exclusive
(sometimes inclusive) verses. I still wonder with the reasoning of the
quote, "yAthum UrE, yAvarum kELir". At the time Kanian
Poon'gkundranaar had uttered these verses, did he reflect the world or
just a group of hamlets adjoining his place of residence be it a
kingdom/township/country? Though it creates a situation of
conjecturing,it suits the present time and hence the common occurrence
to see this quote mentioned when it is anything "global"!
We are aware of the significant grandiose & euphoric paens of our
Sanga Kaala verses. Since poets demonstrate a high level of
creativity, there's the possible connection between psychiatric
illness (manic phase) & great works of literature! Despite the high
regard on some of our poets, at times, it begs to ask the question,
whether poets need to be mentally ill to produce illustrious pieces of
literary superlatives?
There are interesting analysis & studies about poets & their psychic
turbulence and many will continue to unfold. At the same token, it is
not easy to dismiss quotes from many a poet about their own self
revelations on paranoia. Though the prize catch is the Bard of Avon,
"the lunatic,the lover,the poet are of one imagination - all compact!"
Narayanan Kannan
It is simply amazing what has happened in last three decades!
I can't imagine myself, a village boy from Pandinadu working in Japan,
Germany and Korea. It is not me a bigger 'airport hopper' but my
daughter who has travelled so widely for her age. Everything with in 4
or 5 decades! We feel that we are global citizens now.
I was amazed by the fact that so many people from Tamilnadu could
attend the recent TI2009 conference financing themselves, on their
own. I could not have imagined in 70s such a thing. It was a Himalayan
task to go abroad for a conference then!
When I listen to my daughter who is presently in Canada, that Indians
have really wide spread all around the world, spreading our heritage
and culture, imbibing other cultural elements.
After all, Kaniyan Pongundran is right!
Kannan
தாரகை
poets still finds a niche for the roving indo's endeavour to imbibe
multi-cultural elements:-)