Who am I?

I've always wondered who I really am? This path of self-discovery started quite late - when I was asked to fill out my religion, caste and sub-caste in my hostel application form (pretty weird but true). Until then it never occured to me that I was from a particular caste. When I filled "Hindu" in all the columns (I wasn't aware of my caste at that point), the clerk raised his eyebrows and mumbled something about the increasing number of youngsters who forget their roots and opt for love marriages.

I called mom the next day (since I had to submit the completed form) and she said I was a Chettiar - a Beri Chettiar. It is not to be confused with the Shettys, Chettys and the Shets. The word "Chettiar" somehow conjures images of a scheming, portly, balding man in a rice shop and counting cash under his desk. This view of mine was reinforced by Santhana Barathi, who played the part of Chettiar so well in "Mumbai Express".

I can't imagine me being called "Palani Chettiar" as is the case with many other castes. Somehow, it never sounded cool to me. So I decided to dig deep - it turns out that Chettiars are a very fascinating community - they were the pioneers of commerce and banking in South India. Apparently, Singapore became an active trading post due to them. These cool people migrated heavily in search of opportunities especially in South and South-East Asia (Burma, Malaya etc) builiding banks, Murugan temples and not to forget the incredible Chettinad cuisine. The story goes that Chettiars were Shiva-bhaktas and since Brahmins were forbidden to cross the seas (and Shiva temples had to have Brahmin priests), they set up Murugan temples, since he was a less demanding! This is very much visible with names like Palaniappan (Chidambaram, our FM), Meiyappan (AVM studios), Murugappan (TI and Parrys). The folklores associated with them are very interesting to read, especially the one on how the entire community was once nearly wiped out.

Coming back to my experiments with tracing my origins, most of the documented material relates to the more economically dominant Nattukottai Chettiars, who were reputed to own the palatial houses in the Coramandel area, but chose to work in the cities and ports (hence they were called Nagarathars) as merchants. I wanted to find more about us Beri Chettiars. It turns out that by the 13th century AD, the Nattukottai chettiars had flourished under the Chola kings and institutionalized mercantile trade and banking. During this time, migrant Telugu traders like the Komatis, Balijas and Beri Chettis came to to southern Coromandel. This interesting article on Frontline talks about Beri Chettiars who prospered a bit under the British era. Not surprisingly my paternal grandfather was with the Pondicherry customs clearing and my maternal grandfather was a self-made goldsmith.

So who am I - a migrant from Telugu heartland or a Tamilian? I have no clue, but I'm really curious to know (I should try to find people from the Nemam temple who profess to be Beri Chettairs). It should be a lot of fun to find out!

As a side note, I don't believe in the caste system and in my opinion, it is the root cause of many problems in modern India. It was a case of a division of labour scheme that went really, really wrong.