Whats in a name ?

Background: A friend with whom I have often sparred on caste discussions brought this article to my notice. It was a follow-on article by the film critic at The Hindu, Baradwaj Rangan responding to readers’ criticism on his previously published review of ‘OK Kanmani’. He finished his article saying “Class or caste cannot be wished away simply by not being portrayed in films, or by not being mentioned in reviews”.  I wrote this to express my views.

What is in a name !  Reviewing OKK (O Kadal Kanmani) Baradwaj Rangan wrote  “…is very focused about who it is targeting, and at least one segment of that “who” is discernible from Aadhi’s surname — Varadarajan — and the Thyagaraja and Annamacharya compositions that pop up on the soundtrack.”

I probed the reviewer’s suggestion that the director Mani Ratnam intended the male protagonist to be perceived as a Brahmin.  The prima facie conclusion for an ‘Aditya Varadarajan’ with a brother called Vasu would be to conclude him as a Brahmin. However, let us examine the other clues. Adi refers to his sister-in-law as ‘Anni’ rather than ‘Manni’ as Brahmins would. His bare torso reveals no sacred thread.  Of course, one could argue that he has probably not been initiated or has thrown it away, since he was self-confessedly an atheist.  The counter-argument to that would be that most atheist Brahmins do wear their sacred thread – since it does not harm to their beliefs but keeps other family stakeholders happy. 

 

Let us examine the lead female character. The audience got to hear Tara’s second name in one fast-paced conversation.  A “Ka…” something. Possibly a patronym, but I could not register the name to second-guess the caste. However, Tara’s ability to sing along on the Carnatic redeemed her caste quicker than Adi got a chance to utter the Gayatri mantra.

For all the upper-class that Baradwaj spoke of, surprisingly, the dialogues contained almost entirely of Tamil words – even when the lead couple engaged in complicated emotional conversations – a not-so-accurate reflection of the upper class or even upper-middle class from contemporary Tamil Nadu [and so unlike a PSBB product- I should know;)]

If the naming of ‘Aditya Varadarajan’, were to be considered as deliberate by the director, what can one conclude about an Ananya.  Tamil speaking Christian named Ananya who is, to-top-it-all, rather light-complexioned! What are we to make of this?  I dont mean to sound racisit (in this day and age, a disclaimer serves well) but make a mere observation, for all the 22 years I spent in Tamil Nadu, I have not seen a Tamil Christian girl with a complexion anywhere close to Ananya’s).

Moving to Baradwaj Rangan’s observation in his follow-up write-up “But there it was, the perception that the name sounded like it belonged to a particular caste and, therefore, that the film would not go down well with the masses” the reviewer speaks of a very notable but unspoken trend in the film industry.

In my opinion, the apprehension of being boxed into a particular caste/group is not limited to reel characters. Film Industry professionals take care to mask their origins.  A Priya Mani Vasudev Iyer will have a screen-name as ‘Priya Mani’  rather than ‘Priya Iyer’.  [Aside: At any rate ‘Priya Mani’ lends itself to many more puns in Tamil.] Who would object to Prakash Rai moving a mere letter of the alphabet (Prakash Raj) when the measure may insulate the actor from the taint of association with Karnataka during the now-on-now-off Cauvery saga. 

Not that this 'name-change' phenomenon is unique to Tamil Nadu or Kollywood. Apparently, JK Rowling was advised to not expand her initials so readers may buy her book, presuming she was a male (and presumably good) author.

However, what is probably unique to Tamil Nadu, is the caste angle. And understandably so. In fact, a popular Tamil film star attributed Rajnikanth’s superstardom to the fact that Rajnikant did not belong to any caste from Tamil Nadu. So, no group could claim him to be ‘theirs’ and the rest could not refer to him as ‘the other’.  Because he belonged to no one group in Tamil Nadu, he belonged to all of Tamil Nadu. [Whether Rajnikant would have been just as loved if he had been a Marathi-speaking Brahmin named in a Dravidian politico-influenced society, though, is a moot point]

While, it is debatable as to what Dravidian movements in the second half of the 20th century really achieve for Tamil Nadu, it did have considerable social impact. State governments  changed names of public places to prevent association with caste names [GN Chetty Road became GN Road and Thambiah Reddy Street became Thambiah Street].  Many Tamilians dropped their surname that indicated their caste surname and retained a mere patronym second name.

For the curious, I urge them to perform a small experiment. Identify all Tamilians you know and bucket them into Tamilians from Tamil Nadu and the second-generation Tamilians of Tamil Nadu origin from rest-of-India. My guess is the proportion of those with surnames as "Iyer”, "Mudaliar", "Pillai", "Chettiar" or "Nadar" as a surname is significantly higher in the emigrant category.

Juliet said, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet". The Tamil Nadu government probably does not agree. Did the nifty working title of “OK, Kanmani” turned in to the mouthful  “O Kadhal Kanmani”  for the Censor Board certificate to enhance chances of the entertainment tax exemption that the TN government grant when the title is entirely in Thamizh.

 So, what is in a name?  An entertainment tax exemption, at the very least.