Tharavad? House name? What is that?
Over the past few days, I've seen variants of a post on the impermanence of a 'permanent address'. Through the analogy of an address, the posts talk about the futility of trying to hold on to certainties in a changing world.
I agree. But I also believe that - at least for us in India - the liberalisation of the last 30 years has accelerated that change and permanently altered the status quo.
Over the last couple of years, I completed an exercise that many families in Kerala undertake at some point -- creating a family tree and history.
Sifting through anecdotes, dimly or often mis-remembered by older relatives, and scouring available sources for credible facts and figures to validate often apocryphal claims, I put together a timeline for my parent's families going back several generations.
It was a bit of a vanity trip, of course. Like many families in our situation, our family trees feature chieftains, royals, vagabonds, layabouts, achievers, and a large number of people who led quiet lives minding their own business.
But a common thread that ran through every generation before ours was language, culture, and shared experiences. Marriages largely happened within a limited circle and so the family tree was ethnically homogeneous. The matrilineal system of 'tharavad' and 'house name', in such circumstances, was a valid statement of identity. Indeed, there still was a 'tharavad' or ancestral home to go to.
No longer. The ethnic homogeneity of over a century is now in tatters. In the few short years since the economic liberalisation of the 90s, the extended family members have scattered far and wide. People have studied, worked, married, and built their lives miles away or oceans away from our native Malabar.
And of course, a Punjabi or American granddaughter has little or no interest in carrying the 'house name' that all of us struggled to explain in our school years in Delhi and elsewhere to classmates who only understood surnames or caste names.
One thing is for sure. If someone like me in the future were to ever extend the family tree, the names are going to sound a lot more varied and colourful than previously!
And what of the 'tharavad'? The old homesteads are going or gone and now home is where the heart is. So in many corners of the world, there will still beat a Malayali or a part-Malayali heart from the family tree.
I agree. But I also believe that - at least for us in India - the liberalisation of the last 30 years has accelerated that change and permanently altered the status quo.
Over the last couple of years, I completed an exercise that many families in Kerala undertake at some point -- creating a family tree and history.
Sifting through anecdotes, dimly or often mis-remembered by older relatives, and scouring available sources for credible facts and figures to validate often apocryphal claims, I put together a timeline for my parent's families going back several generations.
It was a bit of a vanity trip, of course. Like many families in our situation, our family trees feature chieftains, royals, vagabonds, layabouts, achievers, and a large number of people who led quiet lives minding their own business.
But a common thread that ran through every generation before ours was language, culture, and shared experiences. Marriages largely happened within a limited circle and so the family tree was ethnically homogeneous. The matrilineal system of 'tharavad' and 'house name', in such circumstances, was a valid statement of identity. Indeed, there still was a 'tharavad' or ancestral home to go to.
No longer. The ethnic homogeneity of over a century is now in tatters. In the few short years since the economic liberalisation of the 90s, the extended family members have scattered far and wide. People have studied, worked, married, and built their lives miles away or oceans away from our native Malabar.
And of course, a Punjabi or American granddaughter has little or no interest in carrying the 'house name' that all of us struggled to explain in our school years in Delhi and elsewhere to classmates who only understood surnames or caste names.
One thing is for sure. If someone like me in the future were to ever extend the family tree, the names are going to sound a lot more varied and colourful than previously!
And what of the 'tharavad'? The old homesteads are going or gone and now home is where the heart is. So in many corners of the world, there will still beat a Malayali or a part-Malayali heart from the family tree.
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