[Leica] Mylapore

[Jayanand Govindaraj]

Douglas,
Thanks for looking.

That thread is very strong, actually. I should also be wearing it, as I am
also a Brahmin, but I do not (though both my sons do!). It is just a
caste/tribal distinction nowadays, nothing more, nothing less. It is
incredibly useful, though, both as a safe place to hang house keys, and as
a backscratcher.

All the old caste distinctions, which, as originally envisaged, 3000 years
ago, were really all about slotting people into work areas where they could
be most productive, are all gone. It is really no different to the class
divides in Western society, except it was codified, and flexible as
originally envisaged.. Over the millennia, the caste orders became
ossified, and rigid, and you were born into it and could not escape, even
if you wanted to. Today, they are just tribal distinctions, though very
much alive and rigid in societal norms, fighting for the most part for ever
increasing Govt handouts (so what is new?). So much so, that even
Christians and Muslims have retained their original castes after conversion
here, and still maintain the distinction.. It is probably one of the more
successful societal orders in human history, having lasted the longest,
being pretty stable, and still thriving, at that!

Cheers
Jayanand

On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 6:33 AM, Douglas Barry <imra at iol.ie> wrote:

> Fascinating, Jayanand.
> It was a good shot of the man, and I suppose wearing that easily snapped
> thread indicating his priestly caste is also an age old barrier to physical
> work too?
>
> Douglas
>
>
> On 02/04/2018 11:45, Jayanand Govindaraj via LUG wrote:
>
>> Don, Jim, Robert, Philippe, Alan, Bharani
>>
>> Thanks for looking.
>>
>> Actually what the person is reading is interesting. It is a magazine on
>> traditional Hindu religious philosophy published locally, not in Sanskrit
>> or Tamil, but in English!
>>
>> To decode the image a little further, the thread over his left shoulder
>> (actually should be nine threads knotted together) indicates that he
>> belongs to the Brahmin caste, and the vertical lines of ash on his
>> forehead, which signifies a trident, means that he is a worshiper of
>> Vishnu, one of the supreme trinity of gods in the Hindu pantheon,
>> collectively known as Trimurthi.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Jayanand
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 9:46 AM, scleroplex via LUG <lug at leica-users.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Wonderfully timeless.
>>> Bharani
>>>
>>> Message: 12
>>> Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 21:31:58 +0530
>>> From: Jayanand Govindaraj <jayanand at gmail.com>
>>> To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>, PSM
>>>          <psm-1857 at googlegroups.com>
>>> Subject: [Leica] Mylapore
>>> Message-ID:
>>>          <CAH1UNJ1raZdJNmxwXevBHwmbnUDLrON6PRdeJc6yyAkmqnTVbw at mail.
>>> gmail.com>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
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>
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