acculturaion was Black and Bright and Beautiful

[Bharat Gupt]

Vanbakkam Vijayaraghavan wrote:
> Tamil brahmins use names like Thirumalai, Thirunarayanan, Kuppan,
> Kuppuswamy, Muthu, etc whose sanskrit "content" is minimal.

> This process has accelerated in the last 30 years with cinema, Radio and TV.
>
> BTW, this "north Indian" cultural accuturation has affected not only
> personal names but also dress- again irrespective of caste. About 25 years
> back one would hardly see south indian girls in Shalwar kameez, mostly they
> would be "dhavani" or half-saree. Now among college girls shalwar kameez is
> a la mode.

This is true, but the impact of the South on North in India is also a reality.
Food, dances, sarees, films, etc..

However, in all honesty it must be stated that  the Southern impact on the
North would have been much greater but for Tamil separatism and aggressive
Dravidianist politics that has prevented the North from relating to them more
closely and take culltural creations that are better preserved in the South.
The average modern North Indian, yes, even a Hindiwalla, regards that Hindu
heritage is better available in the South. By creating the Aryan-Dravid
divide and Brahmin bashing, the Southern politics has isolated itself from
the wider subcontinental heritage.

The North would have been willing to adopt more than Bharatanaa.tyam
western enlightened rationalists,reformers and ethnicists equated with
prostitute-dances and Southern classical music with Tamil Brahmin music),
it could have participated emotionally and financially in reviving the
libraries, manuscripts, scholarship and institutes as well as festivals
and a myriad other things. And now Tamil separatism in its isolation has become
anti-South (witness yesterday's event, pro-LTTE leader Nedumaran
intervening to free  Karnataka film idol Raj Kumar from the clutches of the
Tamil bandit Veerappan)

Perhaps the implementation of linguistic theories on the socio-political-cultural
life of India is a matter of deep thougt for all Indologists, native and
foreign. I for my part wonder, why nobody feared for India all these
years (one prime-minister and hudred thousands of others dead) as so many
are fearing from Hindutvavaadii fascists.

I think it is food for thought at least for those on whom every indological
construct has a practicle impact. Perhaps it is time to distiguish between
an Indologist and an Indophil (within and out of India).
best wishes,
Bharat Gupt,  Associate Professor, Delhi University