17/02/10

one tamarind fruit

kalpana kannabiran is worried about the telangana culture i don't share with her:
The second pillar of the demand for a separate Telangana is the fact of cultural hegemon. The Telugu film industry is the worst offender – the criminalizing of Telangana language and the people of Telangana in popular culture reaching levels that undermine the dignity of the people of the region.
the only cultural hegemon i'm worried about right now is the growing majoritarian culture that says: there's one telangani culture, and if you don't agree with that, you should consult some eminent social scientist or shut the f%&k up. there is a simple truth that many hindu upper caste liberals should understand: there isn't one telangana. just as there isn't one mumbai, or one coastal andhra or one bengal.

i learnt that truth or lesson, several lessons actually, at a very young age, and one particular teacher was a young man who looked very middle aged when i met him. he was from the golla, or yadav, community and he, let's call him ramaiah, along with his family had come to work as domestic help for my family. in caste terms, he came from a community that ranked much higher than ours, but the city had changed ranks a little and my father's fortunes a lot.

i have to cut this story very short, because i don't like it: he had run away from his village, around 40-50 kms from hyderabad, because he couldn't work for the dora (or lord, master--term used for big, upper caste landowner, to put it simply) of that village any more. the dora's brother had killed ramaiah's younger brother because he had dared to pluck a fruit from a tamarind tree in the dora's family's vast farm. he had beat him up very badly, worked on him with a tractor tyre, and the young man died some time later from whatever was broken inside him. that happened around 35-40 years ago and this dora happened to be someone my father knew in the city, and i still remember how ramaiah used to shake in fear whenever he came visiting.

other stories, other lessons from other people have also been useful, but because i was very young, that tamarind fruit stayed in my mind. it's a huge library for me. i've learnt from the tamarind fruit that i don't share any culture with kcr, nor does kcr share any culture with gaddar, nor does gaddar share any culture with ramaiah. and that tamarind fruit shall always divide me from prof.haragopal or any other brahmin gopal.

so what do these shared 'culture' and 'socialist vision' of the leaders of the separatist movement ms.kannabiran speaks about have to offer? it's not like they're going to give every dalit rural worker and obc farmer or artisan jobs in the hyderabad central university or osmania university with equal pay and perks as prof.haragopal used to enjoy and prof.kodandaram now refuses to give up, are they?

my appeal to the tamarind fruit owners: please stop talking about 'diverse constituencies' and a 'composite culture' in the same breath.

8 comments:

Kiran Ch said...

recently i stopped watching sujai blog and started to look at yours, feel like home.. after consistently listening to manipulated data, echo of some one is being looted and some one is looting to the core.. what not.. all hatredness plants.. worried if this carried T will be another afganistan no wonder.

Thanks kufr for posting meaningful and common scene at least for the new generations or not already influenced by the maio ways

Reality said...

This whole argument about culture is so ridiculous. Culture changes with every 100 kms in India. also there are significant differences in cultures of different castes . we cannot create states based on culture.

Also culture changes with time, it is not stagnant. Outside influences and new thinking are always challenging old ways and giving rise to new ways.

Anonymous said...

@Kufr

I am feeling relaxed after reading yours and Chakravarthy Nalamotu's blog..until now i couldnt find a single blog or website which could stand on neck to neck with pro telanganites who spreading hate speaches false propagandas..finally i have found some..thanks for your writings..


@Kiran Ch,

Sujai has been writing blogs with one agenda motivating telangana people against Andhraits by giving hate speaches thru his blogs, you dont find any reasonable statistics some sort... many a times many people have given him good replies but he simply ignores them cause he him self knows very well that whos cheating who! he has been writing blogs with a Purpose of something for his benifit i believe. in a post he even described the leaders who aspired Vishalandhra as Cunning Andhra Leaders but every one knows leaders of that time how they lived how they died...pacha kamerla sametha laga with his filthy brain he cant think better than that..onother post he declres there is no left canal for Nagarjuna sagar Dam...but some one corrected him.

-eeswar

Blueshift said...

kufr

wonderfull....and clap clap....

I see this whole Telangana movement as some rich doras feeling great heart burn over huge amounts of wealth amassed by super rich andhra kammas and nothing more. In this process they are using dalits BC's other poor Telanganites to achieve seperate state so that rich doras can now fill in the vaccum created by super rich kammas and become super rich.

If center is ready to form Telangana then i think the BC's Dalits must sign an agreement like the gentelmen agreement which was signed when T- merged with Andhra so that these rich dora's wanna be of super rich dont get away scott free.

kuffir said...

kiran ch/anon,

thanks for the appreciation. means a lot to me.

reality,

'Also culture changes with time, it is not stagnant.'

very true.

blueshift,

thanks for commenting. i think this movement is not just about super rich kammas, or doras. it's also about the super rich kammas and doras' inability to achieve anything meaningful with all the power and wealth entrusted to them over a long time. when you compare their 'achievements' with similar classes of people in neighbouring states, you could say they've been very inefficient users of all the resources they've been able to corner.

Bhanu Prasad said...

Kufr,

Goodness me..I never thought that the feudal exploitation was so horrible. Killing a human being for just a worthless tamarind fruit!!!!!!

ANyway I will post more and more articles in my blog as well, each article highlighting the ignorance of these telangana "intellectuals"

Keep up the good work.

:clap: :clap:

sravan said...

You have a dire comprehensive understanding difficulty in differentiating caste from culture.

Rama Mohan said...

Visit for the telangana favor sites
http://lifestyle-india.blogspot.com/2010/03/top-telangana-favor-sites.html

 
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