The Unspoken reality in South Asia

Every commentor on this blog, knows there are family and relatives and who bonk the servants or help  in South Asia.

H. M. Brough  the Bro probably would say I  am talking gibberish, i.e bonk.

Bonk  and bonk and parte.
Words are bad not the reality

Many (of my vintage) listen to Santana eg Oye Como Va
How many know the meaning.

http://sbarrkum.blogspot.com/2011/02/celia-cruz-oye-como-va-and-cubanpuerto.html

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sbarrkum

I am 3/4ths Sri Lankan (Jaffna) Tamil, 1/8th Sinhalese and 1/8th Irish; a proper mutt. Maternal: Grandfather a Govt Surveyor married my grandmother of Sinhalese/Irish descent from the deep south, in the early 1900’s. They lived in the deep South, are generally considered Sinhalese and look Eurasian (common among upper class Sinhalese). They were Anglicans (Church of England), became Evangelical Christians (AOG) in 1940's, and built the first Evangelical church in the South. Paternal: Sri Lanka (Jaffna Tamil). Paternal ancestors converted to Catholicism during Portuguese rule (1500's), went back to being Hindu and then became Methodists (and Anglicans) around 1850 (ggfather). They were Administrators and translators to the British, poets and writers in Tamil and English. Grandfathers sister was the first female Tamil novelist of modern times I was brought up as an Evangelical even attending Bible study till about the age of 13. Agnostic and later atheist. I studied in Sinhala, did a Bachelor in Chemistry and Physics in Sri Lanka. Then did Oceanography graduate stuff and research in the US. I am about 60 years old, no kids, widower. Sri Lankan citizen (no dual) and been back in SL since 2012. Live in small village near a National Park, run a very small budget guest house and try to do some agriculture that can survive the Elephants, monkeys and wild boar incursions. I am not really anonymous, a little digging and you can find my identity.

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arjun
arjun
5 years ago

It’s time to call bullshit on the supposed colour prejudice in India. Fairness may be an aspirational beauty standard in India (the way being tall or slim is in the West) but it carries very little valence in terms of institutionalized prejudice.

People in the West have this baggage with skin colour that they are trying to project onto other people. The joke is on those of us who buy into this shit.

INDTHINGS
INDTHINGS
5 years ago
Reply to  arjun

Delusion has a name and its Arjun.

India is far more racist, casteist, or whatever you want to call it, than any Western country.

Dravidarya
Dravidarya
5 years ago
Reply to  INDTHINGS

We might disagree on many things but you’re right on the spot on this topic. Asians in general are not as woke as American or European folks.

arjun
arjun
5 years ago
Reply to  INDTHINGS

I know nuance (or logic and occasionally even grammar) isn’t your thing but try to stay on point. You can be a casteist and still not attach privilege to skin colour.

Like Pakistanis do in their attempt to pass off as Arab/Persian/Turkish.

INDTHINGS
INDTHINGS
5 years ago
Reply to  arjun

India attaches more privilege to skin color than any European country (and most countries generally). The only people who don’t see this are either diaspora kids or the people who are privileging from their skin color (upper-castes).

Pakistanis pretend to be Middle-Eastern, Indians pretend to be European (Aryan). I’m not an expert on genetic stuff but I think Pakistanis are closer to their idealized group than Indians.

thewarlock
thewarlock
5 years ago
Reply to  INDTHINGS

I agree 100%. the steppe:aasi ratio rules over all

if anything, racism is far worse in S Asia than even religious intolerance.

Arjun
Arjun
5 years ago
Reply to  thewarlock

Both racism and casteism are prevalent problems in India. Racist Indian attitudes affect the experiences of Africans and East Asians in India.

Skin colour, by itself, does not encode such racism. Darker Indians are not more likely to be shot by police or denied access to housing or unemployment.

justanotherlurker
justanotherlurker
5 years ago

call bullshit on sbarkumm’s claim. speak for your family, not ours 🙂

Brown_Pundit_Man
Brown_Pundit_Man
5 years ago

Two words for you, sbarkumm: Google Translate. Other than that, we love you here. ?

Anyways, I think that I understood this premise of yours: “there are family and relatives and who bonk the servants or help in South Asia.”

Yes, you’re right. I do have a first cousin, who now lives in the USA, who had a live-in maid. The live-in maid was related to him, in fact, and so she was in our “caste” or “tribe.” My cousin came from a middle-class family. His dad was a petroleum engineer in the UAE in the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s. On the other hand, his cousin’s family were poor agrarians, and her dad basically gave her daughter away to my cousin’s family.

The girl was around 17 or younger when she was given away to my aunt and uncle’s family. Keep in mind that my aunt and uncle had 3 kids, and one of them was my, then, 17 year old male cousin.

Anyways, that girl was literally raped by my first cousin, and I only knew about this many years later from someone else in my family. The maid, or my cousin’s cousin who was raped, got pregnant, and she ate some herbs or vegetation to help her abort her pregnancy. This was all back around 1995.

Anyways, that maid had a lot to do with raising so many people, including me whenever I’d visit South India. She was very nice and smart.

I think that my aunt was quite abusive to her, and frequently administered corporal punishment. The maid did a lot of tough work, and woke up very early in the mornings to put some gorgeous powder decorations in the front of the home every morning. I’d see her use a HUGE mortar and pestle to grind some materials, and as a result, she had a huge upper body.

Finally, I saw this former maid. She has kids who are going to graduate school, and I told her that if she needs anything, that I’d be very happy to help her out financially.

What I learned:
* My aunt/uncle basically bought a sex-slave for their son. Why else did they have a live-in maid the same age as their 17 YO son?
* Maids are EXTREMELY vulnerable to all kinds of abuse, especially if they’re live in, and fully dependent on their hosts.
* Pity all live-in maids, au pairs, and domestic servants of South Asia and the Middle East.

girmit
girmit
5 years ago

Quite a few maids, cooks , agricultural labourers, and other females in the service classes are adept at seducing their employers as well. Not to excuse whats probably the more common exploitative relations, but life is too short to turn down certain experiences.

VijayVan
5 years ago

About racism in India , I came across this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEMneKKHQFE
she is talking about prejudices about NorthEast people by the rest of India

Anyhow Sereno, I like the salsa music to which I have shaken quite a bit

Numinous
Numinous
5 years ago

Think there may be a class angle here. Growing up in the urban middle class in a small town, I knew literally nobody who had live in servants, though everyone had part-time help; couple of hours in a day sort of thing. So I confess I have not known or heard of the kinds of abominations sbarrkum is referring to.

VijayVan
5 years ago
Reply to  Numinous

\So I confess I have not known or heard of the kinds of abominations sbarrkum is referring to.\

sbarrkum is talking of even more class based society , traditional feudal elite having got the trappings of ‘high class’ . In urban India , that is not the norm.

Roma Bhatt
Roma Bhatt
5 years ago

Totally agree with sbarrkum without any doubt. The high steppe people will get their taste when they walk out of India or South Asia. Some populist European countries have used genetic ancestry as a tool to check their immigration of how many M maternal lineages are entering into their countries.
I am sorry I don’t have feasible solution to what you are talking nor I have golden heart and courageous armory as The Great Malala.
Please educate women of South Asia to open their eyes

AnAn
5 years ago

sbarrkum, I had never heard of this phenomenon before you mentioned it on Brown Pundits.

I suspect that it is rare. Might it be increasing in frequency in recent years because of modern global cosmopolitan culture?

Dravidarya
Dravidarya
5 years ago
Reply to  sbarrkum

Are you still stuck on to that archaic interpretation of the Dasyus?

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