Being Iyer…Part 2

As I write this, I am simultaneously flipping through some pics on a Facebook page dedicated to Iyers…called Iyer Tips, personally I love this page, haha… for each and every goddamn thing written here is true to the core, ranging from Poonal to Thayir-Chaadam and what not…!! Well.. talking about Iyer bhashai, whenever I saw those lame TV serials on Sun TV, which my mom used to follow so religiously, I became confused as I was a kid then and wondered, why the hell do these people speak that kind of Tamil, with an accentuated nasalized tone?? 

Haha… boy oh boy… who knows pure tamil anyway… everything has become so adulterated nowadays,well.. growing up in Ghaziabad was quite easy, as I passed myself for a north Indian. Having been born in Ghaziabad, My elder sister, though had to undergo the numerous regimes of a typical Iyer family, like..learning Bharatnatyam by one Shantha aunty, who lived quite far from our home, another Palakkad iyer like us, living in Ghaziabad, the day Shantha aunty’s family got shifted to New Delhi, that was the happiest day for my elder sister K.V.Meenakshi, as she is called, for she no longer had to tolerate those torturing and long bharatnatyam classes.

I was named Subramaniam at birth. Subramaniam being my Paternal Grandfather’s name, and as per Iyer custom, a grandson is named after the Grandfather, so my name became K.V.Subramaniam, that is Koduvayur Venkitaraman Subramaniam, Koduvayur being the place of the family lineage, and Venkitaraman being my father’s name, but mom decided to go against the family norms for once and rechristened me as “Abhishek” . although common, but I guess it sounded easier and less scary than Subramaniam, gaawd… at that time I hated subramaniam so much , and everyone in the family used to call me as Chuppamani…!! (ughhhh)… but the irony of the situation today is –after a lot of trials and tribulations , I decided that my facebook name would be Abhishek Subramaniam Iyer, after all, I am proud of being an iyer 

My sister used to be taunted by my mother, and as our Facebook page says: She used to taunt her when she didn’t get up early –“Naalaku nee thaan innooru aathuku poyi kashta pada porai”  !! Now I realize that one can never ever forget the essence of the place from where we came from, sometimes at the local south Indian Temple during avaniattam, I used to get embarrassed, as I don’t know how to wear a veshti properly to this day, so I really avoid avaniattam at the first place, that rebellion seed had been planted inside me since childhood, I got so suffocated by all those customs, and dos and don’ts.. everytime…!! 

Well.. this is just the beginning of the story.. a lot to share.. a lot to come….!! But bye for now… as More assignments are waiting for this Iyer…!! :D