The Average Tam-Bram - Episode One - The Early Years

... or "How I got to college"

Disclaimer: This is not entirely imagination - it is partly inspired and shaped by real stories experienced or seen. Again, not always factually correct, this is intended to be taken with a pinch of salt, some paruppu podi and ghee followed by a large glass of buttermilk. It's meant to be funny and harbors no intention to cast anyone/anything in unfavorable light (except maybe the girl who avoided you and the mess food ).

The average Tam-Bram (henceforth, referred to as ATB) is a species that is found in large numbers in the following geographies - South India, Bangalore, Mumbai are the major strongholds in the Indian sub-continent. Scattered populations are also to be found in Delhi and Calcutta, but these populations exhibit subtle character differences such as being ambivalent towards North Indian khana and over time moving away from the A2Bs (Adayar Ananda Bhavan, for the uninitiated) and South-Indian joints. Dense thriving populations are also to be found on the West Coast of the United states - especially in the state California - in and around San Francisco, San Jose and Sunnyvale. This population of late has shown a small decline. Smaller but adapting populations are found in Chicago (these are the ones that are the subject of statements propounded by madisaar-wearing Mylapore maamis - "Aamam, yenga son-vandu Chickaago'l irrukan!"). It must be noted that most of the population in the North American continent has the unique ability to speak Tamil with an American accent - most evident in the pronunciation of 'thanni' (meaning 'water' or in slang any kind of alcohol) is pronounced as 'than-eee' with the last syllable being drawn out for about three seconds too long.

Having reasonably established the global distribution of this species, it is only normal to be curious about what causes such varied migration patterns and adaptations. And, this necessitates a not-so-small deviation in to the life-story of this species. Attempt shall be made to keep it brief and provide suitable analogies to help the reader identify and relate to the subject of discussion. Clarifications maybe gotten from your nearest Tam-Bram colleague (which if you are reading this might not at all be in short supply - stand up and yell "Macha, degree kaapi, anyone?" and the Tam-Bram will raise his hand up).

The birth of a male child in an average educated Tam-Bram family is reason for celebration. Apart from the usual religious functions, long discussions about his education are initiated in the family. Parents, grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, neighbours and maami from the yellow house two streets away best know for her prying-nature get involved. The end-goal is quite simple - engineer, doctor or investment-banker(a recent entrant but, of late a lost a little ground owing to the sub-prime crisis - this fact you did not know). Cousins (and possibly friends of cousins and friends of friends of cousins and their respective parents) are throughly grilled upon the subject of education, schools, coaching classes, colleges, entrance exams, brand of bag/pen/shoes and water-bottle color. All of this information is carefully arranged and filed in triplicate along with a master copy that is bound and kept in the safe-deposit locker beside the silver sandhyavandham utensils and jewelery.

After about a year of doting, as part of the toddler's first birth ceremony he embarks on his arduous and daunting journey through life. He is brought up on a carefully controlled diet of idli, dosai, pongal and the rare conrflakes for breakfast, sambar, rasam and curd-rice (the world-famous 'thayyir saadam') for lunch and a combination of the breakfast and lunch menu for dinner. Regular daily intake of Complan/Bournvita/Maltova/Horlicks coupled with morning prayers, evening prayers and general knowledge books ensure and build his physical, spiritual and intellectual growth. His mother's greatest worry for the son is whether his wife will be able to regulate and provide the strict regimen that the ATB needs for proper functioning and this is knowledge is imparted to every daughter in the family (apart from how to buy vegetable, bargain, cook, Carnatic music, Bharatanatyam and read star-charts to determine auspicious days for all activities including sneezing).

Once he starts his schooling he is constantly under the scanner of both father and mother for consistent top performance (at least 18 standard deviations above the class average and at all times better than his friends who will be constantly used as an example to encourage). Play times are strictly supervised and activities exclude all games that can potentially cause injuries - which leaves the poor boy with very limited choice. The drill gets more intense as he proceeds further along - post his poonal (aka Upanayanam aka scared-threading - not to be confused with the beauty parlor procedure for women) he is required to perform all his studies with renewed vigour with the added sandhyavandhanam (starts with thrice a day, peters down to twice and then stabilizes at once every morning before eventually being performed once a year when the thread is changed).

Three exams are extremely important in any ATB's career - 10th standard board (Kapil Sibal has caused furore among parents of many ATB's with his reforms leading to the formation of a 'Mothers against Sibal" group), 12th standard board and the entrance exam for Engineering/Medical seats. Given the authors' profession and life-directions we shall explore the Engineer ATB's progress - almost all of what is presented further maybe applied to a Doctor ATB without any loss of generality.

The build up to the exams is an elaborate process consisting of visits to temples, promises of sweets/coconuts/shaved-head to the various deities and umpteen cups of milk/filter-coffee. Relatives are banned from paying social visits and the rest of the family stops watching TV to prevent any form of distraction to the ATB. Girlfriends being a strict no-no at all phases of life, during this pre-exam and exam period even magazines that have pictures of members of the female species (including J.Jayalalitha are stuffed away out of sight in the attic). Eating outside is strictly forbidden to prevent illness and all sources of cold drafts in the house are sealed.

During the exam the pencil-box lid and the obverse side of the writing pad will carry the picture of Goddess Saraswati (for knowledge and wisdom) and Lord Ganesha (the remover of all obstacles) to combat peeping cheating examinees and nasty examiners. The admission ticket is preserved carefully in a transparent plastic pouch and placed in front of pictures of gods so that they may be able to memorize his roll number and bestow their benevolence in the form of marks. Prayers are mandated before leaving for the hall (with a generous smearing of holy-ash on the forehead) as well as before answering the examination.

The two years post class ten are red-letter years (so red, that even a color-blind, for that matter even a blind, bull gets excited). Two important life-changing life-deciding examinations are space in a matter of two or so months - 12th standard board and the IIT-JEE(and/or)AIEEE(and/or)CET(or its equivalent). Along with regular school, grueling coaching classes are attended. Popular choices are Brilliant's (Chennai) and BASE (Bangalore) in addition to correspondence courses from either Brilliant's or FIIT-JEE. Irodovs, Morrision Boyd and Loney are studied, re-studied, revised and re-revised till the pages being to tear. ATBs have been known to weak up in cold-sweat from a nightmare muttering complex integration formulae - but these are rare cases, because most ATBs never sleep for these two years.

Once the exams are over another round of temple-visiting and praying starts to make sure that the results are as expected. 95% plus in the boards and a top-100 rank in JEE/AIEEE which will get the ATB into Electronics/ComputerScience in IIT-Madras/IIT-Bombay/NIT-Surathkal/NIT-Trichy/NIT-Calicut/NIT-Warrangal - ATBs at that tender stage are extremely apprehensive of crossing the Vindhyas - even IIT-Bombay is a hard choice but the strong migrant population (which invariably consists of at least one relative, however distant) in Matunga/Sion/Chembur comforts the parents about their fledging progeny flying the coop. He will be bundled off with various podis - paruppu(lenti), kothamalli (curry leaves) and thengai(coconut) to be eaten with rice and pickle (lemon/mango) when the mess food is inedible. He is given strict instructions to stay away from bad company, parties in the night, trips with friends to Goa and most importantly girls. The last is drilled into him umpteen number of times for the simple reason that any girl that has not been found and verified by the maami-network is pure recipe for disaster ("Shiva...shiva...edo ponnu-pa!"). A week before the day of departure luggage is checked, packed, re-checked and re-packed. Odds and ends such as Co-optex towels, Medimix soap and vibhuti are purchased in quantities to last an army of ATBs a year. A trip to the family deity's shrine is made.

On the D-Day, the ATB is showered with love and hugs and favorite food. The entire family and extended family and neighbours and the nosy-mami come to see him off. He gets on the bus/train and till the train/bus is out of sight everyone is waving. Thirty seconds later he gets a call on his new mobile phone (only Rs1299 with color screen and polyphonic ringtones and lifetime incoming free) to make sure he is ok. And an SMS, about thirty seconds hence.

The reader must have noticed that we have only examined the factors - people and situations - external to the ATB, but have not delved into the psyche of the ATB himself - of what he is thinking and what runs in his head. This shall now play a central theme of the following episodes.