This book is written by one of the foremost social anthropologists in the world during his time, M. N. Srinivas as a Ph.D thesis. Working with the golden generation of anthropology in Britain during the 1940s, he readied the thesis for publication, under the influence of distinguished anthropologists, tracing a lineage back to Emile Durkheim.
As is probably expected of a person under Durkheim's considerable influence, Srinivas is preoccupied with the question of social structure, and how culture, which is the subject matter of anthropology, either affirms or is used to note the change of a person's place in the extant social structure. The Durkheimian concept of 'functional analysis' or the study of the functions of human behavior in preserving the social structure resonates throughout the book. However one may disagree with the conclusions drawn by Srinivas, the book provides a pretty thorough picture of an interesting people around the 1940s.
Srinivas' analysis of the social structure of India mainly focuses on the caste system, and certain vertical (i.e, geographically local) organisations, such as the village, family and nad, which is a cluster of villages. Certain ties between people, such as those of caste, tend to emphasize horizontal or geographically widespread relations whereas some others, like those which arise due to division of labor, tend to emphasize vertical relations.
Most of the book concentrates on the various rituals and customs and festivals of the Coorgs, and the role they and other castes play in them. He brings about an interesting correlation between the various customs and rituals, and how they emphasize and tend to preserve the social structure. For example, if a person dies, the mourning period for the relatives increases with increase in intimacy of the relationship shared with the deceased, formalizing what is a purely social bond into a custom or ritual.
People who know Kodavas will inevitably know their clannish behavior, especially with regards to their family (i.e, all sharing a surname). Srinivas spends a lot of time describing the structure and customs within a Coorg joint family, which is the strongest unit of organisation in the Coorg society, far more than any other kind. It is so strong, that a person without a family name (such as a child born out of wedlock) is as good as extinct. Therefore, family members usually try to place an illegitimate child in either parents' family.
The major theoritical contribution that this work makes to Indian anthropology is the concept of Sanskritisation, which is essentially the way outlying tribes and communities get absorbed into mainline Hinduism, which he calls Sanskritic Hinduism. He describes how the puranas have contributed to the inclusion of various local myths and folklore into the mainstream of Hinduism, performing has a dual function : regionalising Sanskritic Hinduism and globalising local cultures. This, he argues, is a preliminary step which eases the way for complete Sanskritisation of a culture, while retaining its distinct identity, since it's own deities are now part of or identified with Sanskritic such as Shiva or Brahma or Vishnu. He gives an example of how contemporary educated Coorgs tended to identify village gods with Shiva (Coorg was ruled by Lingayat kings for a considerable amount of time, so Shaivism was popular there when the book was written. This no longer seems to be the fact) and explained the deities' liking for liquor and meat as a consequence of 'losing their caste' while crossing over from Malabar to Coorg. He also documents the occurrence of the origins of Kaveri, a sacred river among Coorgs and generally most of South Indian Hindus, in the Skanda Purana, which eased the way for the integration of Coorgs into mainline Hinduism, since their river deity was now a part of the Hindu pantheon.
Overall, an interesting read, though the attention to detail which is an anthropologist's forte, tends to be tiresome for someone used to reading engineering definitions and terse prose. The analysis of Hinduism itself is rewarding enough to stick with the book till the end.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Travelogue - The Timbaktu Collective
Like I had mentioned in the previous post, am just back from a visit to a place close to Dharmavaram in Andhra Pradesh, called the Timbaktu Collective. It's beginnings and philisophy are best read about on the website itself, will just narrate my experiences there.After 2 hours by train to Bangalore and 5 hours of navigating somewhat substandard roads to Chennekothapalli, was picked up and packed off for some lunch at the school run by the Collective here.
The school has an interesting philosophy of no competition and no extracurricu
lars. No competition would mean no grading and exams and rankings, student progress is monitored via worksheets that they fill up regularly. No extracurriculars simply means that everything is in curriculum! They have daily crafts, singing and other arts, sports and studies which mainly focus on language and math. Their idea is that if a student masters a language well, then learning knowledge in that language will be facilitated. Most of the students here are from socially and economically backward backgrounds, and some with a history of family violence and others who have been rejected as failures in the local government school.This is the only school that I have seen that actually encourages making paper rock
ets in class! The picture alongside is the classroom, The students being engaged in their song and dance practice.Close by is a children's learning centre, with a well furnished library, computers, tailoring machines, physics and chemistry labs, woodworking tools which the children not only of their own school, but the local government school as well can use. The only restriction is that there is no teaching here, if the students have doubts, they ask the elders present, else they essentially freak out in what which way they like.
Timbaktu is slightly outside the village, and the person you see with the vehicle in the children's learning centre, Mr. Subba Raju was my official guide and contact. A member of the Collective almost since its inception, he is a PhD in Power Systems from IIT Powai, and takes care of the educational initiatives here.
Playground, with a scenic view.
The reason I had visited Timbaktu was to demo a motion sensor based lighting system, like what is available commercially nowadays. They have installed LED based pathway lighting, which is left on the whole night. Considering that they run the whole Collective on solar power, anything that can cut consumption is welcome, and hence my proposal.
This is Subba Raju's house in Timbaktu. Like everything else in Timbaktu, a
ppropriate to the social, economic and environmental conditions found in this area, which boasts of being one of the driest places in Andhra Pradesh, with annual rainfall of 300mm. We reached at around 5 PM, and spent the rest of the evening demoing the system, as well as discussing LED lighting. After a great dinner which was well suited to my tastes (salty, not too spicy), talked a bit about how civilization is progressing and other miscellaneous heavy matters, and dropped off by round 10 PM to rest.Another incredible initiative of
the Collective has been the protection and regeneration of the forests around. The forests have been severely degraded due to forest fires, over grazing and wood-cutting. 15 years of protection have allowed Nature to regenerate the forests, unlike Forest Dept initiatives to bring in fast growing varieties from nurseries and plant them in foreign conditions. The contrast can be seen in the following photos. One is of a hill which is not protected and the other which is. Timbaktu takes care of an area of about 100 acres of forest, and supported an initiative of join
t village ownership of forests on revenue wastelands which spans a mind-boggling 10,000 hectares. These forests have made streams perennial, revitalized the economy of artisans and forest produce harvesters as well as providing the local animals with shelter.I left back for the other kind of reality the next day morning. On the whole, a very refreshing experience, with the added bonus of a kilo of really tasty chutney powder which was made that morning. Timbaktu is an interesting experiment to seek alternate forms of social organisation which are not necessarily parasitic upon the surrounding ecology. Though it will remain an experiment for atleast a few more decades, time will come when the lessons learnt here will be taken seriously by 'advanced' civilizations such as ours. Their entire outlook can be summarised by the next photo. As you might have guessed, this is the same stone that says 'Welcome to Timbaktu'. You will see this on the way back.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
A fine example...
... of human creativity breaking the boundaries of formal planning. This was on a train (Jaipur Mysore Express) from Dharmavaram to Mysore, more on that trip later. The woman, a Rajasthani, was extremely hesistant to get her picture taken, hence the face covering. Had to take the picture against her wishes :)
How watertight can we be ?
Was reading a book that I previously mentioned, about an introduction to the notable sociologists from when the term was coined. Among one of the greatest among these was undoubtedly Max Weber, and a small section of the chapter devoted to him talks about his prophecies of doom, that social organisation would tend to more and more rational organisation in terms of efficiency, run by a scientifically guided bureaucracy.
Thankfully, we do not yet live in an age where managers rule every aspect of our lives, from what we eat to who we sleep with. Though it is obvious that an efficient bureaucracy will lead to maximally efficient organisation of human productive output, it is far from obvious that that is what people want, and far less obvious whether it can really be implemented.
An incident narrated by a friend working in a company in Bangalore comes to mind. A romantically involved couple, both working for the same company, were said to be seen smooching in the office. Now, the reaction was one of complete disbelief and shock at how unprofessional people can be. Looking at it from the other side, can one not question as to why a person in love (with what/who ever) cannot show her/his affection where and when one feels ? The answer would be that the office is a place to act in a certain way, and there are unwritten codes of conduct which govern osculatory behaviour here. Why are certain modes of behaviour permissible and others unprofessional ? Because they cause a disturbance, a distraction from the normal activity of efficient production ? While it definitely not my intention to condone smooching in corridors and cubicles, it is definitely my intention to question why any person is required to curb certain parts of her personality. It is hard to see how such an environment would help in formation of a well rounded personality. Also, one finds a tinge of hypocrisy in such attitudes. One is told not to bring home worries into work and vice versa, but one never hears about people told to leave their happiness at home and wear a surly mask at the workplace. Certain things which are beneficial to production are always welcome, the rest, please excuse, please.
Romantic escapades apart, there are many instances of companies cutting employees off the Internet, and similar restrictions in the name of 'distractions'. But employees find creative ways to overcome such things where possible, and a purely machine-like worker will hardly ever surface. To the horror of the top brass, people seem to want to waste time in idle chatting, gossip, tales of woe, trip discussions and many other such uneconomic behavior (I almost forgot the coffee machine ;). Nowadays, many companies seem to have recognized (or resigned to) the fact that people do not enter the office in the morning just to work continuously for 8 hours and then get back to their normal lives, and provide a much more liberal atmosphere, where one gets an opportunity to explore other aspects of social behavior and grouping. Far from Max Weber's tight bureaucratic dystopia, bureaucracy now seems to recognize human inability to divide space and time into watertight compartments, each requiring a kind of behavior that provides maximum efficiency to the task at hand.
Similar to the managerial expectations and frustrations, are our own wishes that sometimes go unfulfilled. We would like a park to be neat and clean and we end up seeing beggars and homeless bums in them. We would like our roads to be clean and free from disturbances but find religious processions and bales of ragi put out for drying. We wish to watch movies undisturbed but end up covering our ears against the cat calls as soon as Bipasha comes onscreen. We want our footpaths wide and safe, but end up walking on the road due to the sudden appearance of a temple overnight on the footpath. Just like human behavior, his cultural creations overflow and confound the best laid plans of the urban planners and middle class.
Just as we want to do things 'our way', so do so many others. About time we recognized and respect the non-watertightness that is so natural in the world.
Thankfully, we do not yet live in an age where managers rule every aspect of our lives, from what we eat to who we sleep with. Though it is obvious that an efficient bureaucracy will lead to maximally efficient organisation of human productive output, it is far from obvious that that is what people want, and far less obvious whether it can really be implemented.
An incident narrated by a friend working in a company in Bangalore comes to mind. A romantically involved couple, both working for the same company, were said to be seen smooching in the office. Now, the reaction was one of complete disbelief and shock at how unprofessional people can be. Looking at it from the other side, can one not question as to why a person in love (with what/who ever) cannot show her/his affection where and when one feels ? The answer would be that the office is a place to act in a certain way, and there are unwritten codes of conduct which govern osculatory behaviour here. Why are certain modes of behaviour permissible and others unprofessional ? Because they cause a disturbance, a distraction from the normal activity of efficient production ? While it definitely not my intention to condone smooching in corridors and cubicles, it is definitely my intention to question why any person is required to curb certain parts of her personality. It is hard to see how such an environment would help in formation of a well rounded personality. Also, one finds a tinge of hypocrisy in such attitudes. One is told not to bring home worries into work and vice versa, but one never hears about people told to leave their happiness at home and wear a surly mask at the workplace. Certain things which are beneficial to production are always welcome, the rest, please excuse, please.
Romantic escapades apart, there are many instances of companies cutting employees off the Internet, and similar restrictions in the name of 'distractions'. But employees find creative ways to overcome such things where possible, and a purely machine-like worker will hardly ever surface. To the horror of the top brass, people seem to want to waste time in idle chatting, gossip, tales of woe, trip discussions and many other such uneconomic behavior (I almost forgot the coffee machine ;). Nowadays, many companies seem to have recognized (or resigned to) the fact that people do not enter the office in the morning just to work continuously for 8 hours and then get back to their normal lives, and provide a much more liberal atmosphere, where one gets an opportunity to explore other aspects of social behavior and grouping. Far from Max Weber's tight bureaucratic dystopia, bureaucracy now seems to recognize human inability to divide space and time into watertight compartments, each requiring a kind of behavior that provides maximum efficiency to the task at hand.
Similar to the managerial expectations and frustrations, are our own wishes that sometimes go unfulfilled. We would like a park to be neat and clean and we end up seeing beggars and homeless bums in them. We would like our roads to be clean and free from disturbances but find religious processions and bales of ragi put out for drying. We wish to watch movies undisturbed but end up covering our ears against the cat calls as soon as Bipasha comes onscreen. We want our footpaths wide and safe, but end up walking on the road due to the sudden appearance of a temple overnight on the footpath. Just like human behavior, his cultural creations overflow and confound the best laid plans of the urban planners and middle class.
Just as we want to do things 'our way', so do so many others. About time we recognized and respect the non-watertightness that is so natural in the world.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Interesting comic
This comic caught the eye, coming coincidentally at round the same time I was griping about scientific method :)
Monday, October 8, 2007
Degeneration or Democratization ?
Hardly can one day pass by without reports from nostalgic and dreamy eyed commentators regarding the degeneration of the 'culture', be it in music, cinema or any of the other arts. They pine for the days of Raj Kapoor, Satyajit Ray, M. S. Subbulakshmi and wonder what is happening to the quality of the arts today. 'Commercialisation', they scream, is moving artists to seek money rather than concentrate on the quality of their art. How true can one say such a situation is ?
Looking back, the patrons of the high arts even in the mid-20th century were largely urban, middle-class, educated people. Brought up seeing and listening to music and cinema which was made by artists patronized by people largely like themselves. One required an acquired taste, a certain erudition to appreciate what had largely become 'elite' art. It would be too much to ask of an average citizen to be put through the torture of listening or seeing something that she cannot comprehend just as it would be too much to ask of even the erudite Carnatic connoisseur to appreciate the nuances of HipHop (assuming, of course, that HipHop can claim to contain such nuances).
As the purchasing power of the lower classes increased, and they started flocking to cinema theatres and music concerts expecting to be entertained, they would obviously want something interesting, understandable, and that made way for the present range of films and music. One can definitely see a rise in number of films made and albums produced as more and more people joined the ranks of a exploding middle class. Even though most of these artistic endeavours were complete disasters from any point of view, the point was that the entertainers had to respond to the needs of a people with different idioms, different tastes from their earlier patrons. How can changing with the times be called a degeneration of art cannot be comprehended. Most people do not have the motivation nor the patience to finish a B.A in Music to appreciate their music. One can hardly find a Hindustani music listener gyrating to the rhythms of the tabla, just as it is extremely hard to find a person not jumping out of his seat (if rock concert organisers provide one!) when Iron Maiden takes the stage.
The rise of new genres of music and cinema, with their attractive rhythms, loud and colorful sets, unimaginative storylines, shorter and shorter durations, reflect the fact that more and more tastes which do not belong to the elite are being given due consideration. It is hard not to identify the distinct workings of a democracy in such changes. Showing the struggling, poor hero rising and challenging a large businesshouse may echo the dreams of a people who see inequality paraded in front of them, not being able to do anything about it.
Therefore, what some perceive to be a degeneration in the quality of art in the recent times due to commercialization or westernization appears to me to be a failure to understand a form of cultural expression, being far too removed from the roots of its inspirations and aspirations. This works the other way as well, with Classical music being derided as too boring.
So, before you go about shooting your mouth off about philistine Punjabi pop or old man's Carnatic music, remember that you don't understand the other well enough to do so!
Looking back, the patrons of the high arts even in the mid-20th century were largely urban, middle-class, educated people. Brought up seeing and listening to music and cinema which was made by artists patronized by people largely like themselves. One required an acquired taste, a certain erudition to appreciate what had largely become 'elite' art. It would be too much to ask of an average citizen to be put through the torture of listening or seeing something that she cannot comprehend just as it would be too much to ask of even the erudite Carnatic connoisseur to appreciate the nuances of HipHop (assuming, of course, that HipHop can claim to contain such nuances).
As the purchasing power of the lower classes increased, and they started flocking to cinema theatres and music concerts expecting to be entertained, they would obviously want something interesting, understandable, and that made way for the present range of films and music. One can definitely see a rise in number of films made and albums produced as more and more people joined the ranks of a exploding middle class. Even though most of these artistic endeavours were complete disasters from any point of view, the point was that the entertainers had to respond to the needs of a people with different idioms, different tastes from their earlier patrons. How can changing with the times be called a degeneration of art cannot be comprehended. Most people do not have the motivation nor the patience to finish a B.A in Music to appreciate their music. One can hardly find a Hindustani music listener gyrating to the rhythms of the tabla, just as it is extremely hard to find a person not jumping out of his seat (if rock concert organisers provide one!) when Iron Maiden takes the stage.
The rise of new genres of music and cinema, with their attractive rhythms, loud and colorful sets, unimaginative storylines, shorter and shorter durations, reflect the fact that more and more tastes which do not belong to the elite are being given due consideration. It is hard not to identify the distinct workings of a democracy in such changes. Showing the struggling, poor hero rising and challenging a large businesshouse may echo the dreams of a people who see inequality paraded in front of them, not being able to do anything about it.
Therefore, what some perceive to be a degeneration in the quality of art in the recent times due to commercialization or westernization appears to me to be a failure to understand a form of cultural expression, being far too removed from the roots of its inspirations and aspirations. This works the other way as well, with Classical music being derided as too boring.
So, before you go about shooting your mouth off about philistine Punjabi pop or old man's Carnatic music, remember that you don't understand the other well enough to do so!
Friday, October 5, 2007
Eulogy
My paternal grandmother passed away on Wednesday, after a brief illness, of adrenal cancer. Bringing up 9 children from a state of abject poverty as a wage labourer in a small village and making sure that they reach a position of relative comfort is an achievement, a quantum leap that can hardly be matched by any of us, regardless. Knowing people capable of such a feat surely is a humbling experience, and puts many of my own 'achievements' into proper perspective.
Never one to raise her voice or beat anyone, she was a very patient person, a quality which unfortunately very few of us care to cultivate. Like I mentioned to my family members, if we place on a weighing scale the good and bad things she has done, it would tilt in the favor of the good. Not that she was philanthrophic, all she had (or not) money for was bring up her children and keep body and soul together, but that she never was one to hurt others. This is a characteristic most of us cannot claim to have, and therefore the scales will always be on the negative side for us, forget about even balancing the two sides. Things that came naturally to her, we cannot dream of achieving after years of labour. For this, she will be a role model to me, I don't need to start looking at Gods until Im sure I have reached atleast her level of non-violence. RIP.
Never one to raise her voice or beat anyone, she was a very patient person, a quality which unfortunately very few of us care to cultivate. Like I mentioned to my family members, if we place on a weighing scale the good and bad things she has done, it would tilt in the favor of the good. Not that she was philanthrophic, all she had (or not) money for was bring up her children and keep body and soul together, but that she never was one to hurt others. This is a characteristic most of us cannot claim to have, and therefore the scales will always be on the negative side for us, forget about even balancing the two sides. Things that came naturally to her, we cannot dream of achieving after years of labour. For this, she will be a role model to me, I don't need to start looking at Gods until Im sure I have reached atleast her level of non-violence. RIP.
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