Topic started by mummudicholan (@ netcache.spectranet.com) on Tue Mar 25 10:51:49 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.
Sun TV broadcasted Kizhakku Seemaiyiley. This is one movie I adore and like other Bharathiaraja’s movies , it carries the ‘manvasanai’ of our land without any exaggerations and with chraracters lifted straight from our lives.
Anyhow, coming to the movie, I heard this song:
”..ethukku pondatti enaa(i) suththi vappatti ekka chakka magip pochu kanakku..”
(Meaning : Why should there be a wife, when I have innumerable vappattis surrounding me!)
Pandian who acts as a Thevar-mainar ( I don’t understand how the word ‘mainar’ came to be in vogue for such jolly-jollu guys ..example ‘mallu vetti mainar’ !!) sings these lines surrounded by Mistresses .
Pandian character in that film is one of my favourite figures and at times I wish that life could be as joyful and carefree as that of Pandian, who is portrayed as a valiant but good and intelligent guy , who says finally in the movie about the losses suffered by all due varattu gouravam(false prestige & ego).
Well, coming to the topic, this song made me think about the concept of Vaipattis (concubines) in the Tamil Society. Once during my grandfathers’ times, this was widely prevalent in the feudal Tamilnadu, especially among landowning castes.
My great grandfather had a vappatti .They used to tell that on Saturday ,the fish used to go to ‘her’ house from our pond alongwith curses and abuses from my greatgrandmother. Perhaps my greatgrandfather had his ‘ennai kuliyal’ followed by ‘viral meen kuzhambu’ on that day in the vappattis house.
Oil massage at the vappattis house followed by a vira meen kuzhabu and vellattu varuval must have been the definition of heaven for the landlords of those era !
Now when grown up, I at times ponder about the fate of the grandfather’s concubine. Whether she had children from him? Which caste she belonged to? If she had been from a different caste, then whether the children has been accepted into the caste? If she has been from the same caste, then why was she called 'vappatti' instead of 'Pondatti'. What prevented these people from marrying their vappattis?
One reason could be that the vappattis were from different castes, and since in those times caste was a strong factor which ensured the protection of their lands and status in the village community, marrying someone from a different caste wouldve been impossible.
Or , the vapattis couldve been from the lower economic strata from the same caste and due to fear of the wife or in-laws, these ‘big men’ wouldve found it easier to have vaipattis( yes husband beating was prevalent even in those times and the fate of even those ‘bigshots’ were pitiable if they had brother-in-laws with big biceps!! :-) )
I remember a family well, the person was a friend of my uncle and he was from the vaipatti. His father was a very big landlord of that place. This person was the only son.But when his father died, he was refused the right of performing the funeral rites for the simple reason that he was the vaipatti’s son .
This person is now in US and is exceptional in his field. But still he was refused recognistion by his own sisters(from the legitimate side). It seems finally he placed a shawl on his father’s dead body and the first daughter (from the proper marriage ) threw that shawl away abusing him.
Its my cousin who told me this when she went to the house were the body was kept and she was remorseful for this fellow and the arrogance of the other( I mean what they called the ‘proper’) family. One reason could be that this fellow is from a different caste perceived as being lower and immoral by his father’s family. I don’t think that this couldve been the situation had his mother belonged to the same caste.
Well, since the topic is Tamil History, let us do some history search.When did this vaipatti practice start in TN?
I think that it mightve come when the caste system originated and the caste system goes in TN society as early as that of the recorded history. Tholkappiam states the theme for ‘Marutha Nilam’ (irrigational lands – vayalum vayal sarntha nilamum) as that of the landlord visiting his vaipatti. We see the impact of this in Silappadikaram, one of the five great epics of Tamils(perhaps it is 2000 years old?). The Gopal (ko valan may be Go –bal) , hero has a concubine from the danceress caste , he is from Baniya caste (vanigan is the tamil form of baniya, a twister word for vaishya– koola vanigan) , one of the three upper varnas of the Hindu society and his legal wife is venerated throughout tamilnadu and srilanka and there are even temples for her. But nowhere we see temples or memory stones for his concubine, madhvi(madhavi) .Infact she alonwith her daughter Manimekala(i) embraced Buddha's path afterwards(i hope it wasnt the teravadism presently practiced in SL!!). Perhaps the denial is due to this fact or may be due to the aversion for mistresses.Anyone reading silappadikaram will be impressed by Madhavi's intelligence, her talents and her courage than by Kannaki(kanika). This is tamil-hypocracy to its greatest heights!!
Leaving the Tamil literary records, let us move ahead to north indian sources on tamil history. We come across a legend in Ramayana which states that before Rama, Parasurama was on a hunt for kshatriyas. The kshatrityas became evil fellows and parasurama was out to finish them all. He massacred a lot of kshatriya kings and there is this mention about a chola king who crowned his vaipaatti’s son and fled to the Pothigai hills to take refuge under Agastya. But we don’t have any record of this available in Tamil sources. Regarding the cholas , we see a chola king marrying a srilankan naga girl and the son, thondaiman is granted a separate (and less fertile) region of pudukkottai.May be he was given thondaimandalam instead of chola mandalam because of this reason? and whether the naga princess was concubine? Well, i dont think so! Rajaraja Chola married around 9 wives and one of them was a tribal girl(vanathi or vanavan mahadevi), but Rajendra Chola who was from this girl was crowned( friends, i am not a history scholar, so plz correct me if i am wrong).
We have the practice in Srilankan Tamil history also, the valiant King Sangili who massacred thousands of christian converts for succumbing to the sops of portuguese was actually son of a concubine of Singai Aryan, the Tamil king who ruled Jaffna, who temporarily fled to Thirukoviloor in Tamilnadu when attacked by Sinhalese kings. We don’t know exactly why he installed his concubine’s son as the king of Jaffna.
Incidentally perhaps around the same time, Kizhavan Sethupathi was challenged from occupying the post of Sethupathi by his rival since Kizhavan sethupathy’s mother was not a Maravar lady. The opponent converted himself to christianity and perhaps for this reason the missionery who helped him convert was skinned alive by Sethupathy’s militia.
Talking about srilankan Tamil community again, the tamil muslims are said to be descendents of the concubines of arab traders.In Srilanka, there were these bitter debates when the Tamil Muslims used to get angry , when faced with this fact. I don’t know as to how far this is true ofcourse as Islam doesn’t prevent legal marriages between arabs and non-arab women. Though vice versa mightve been impossible in those times, even if allowed by islam.
Then we have some God’s who visit vaipattis. The Vishnu at Srirangam visits ‘Thulukka nachiyar’, his muslim concubine. I think that some Saivite saint is also shown as visiting the house of his vaipatti(paravai nachiar?) and in Thiruvarur , a festival is there to mark this. The innocent tamils even imbibed this practice into their religion.
Well, coming to this area, I found out that there was a greatgrandfather in my father’s side who had a family in tamilnadu and when he went to Singapore , there had a vaipatti who was chinese. For sometime he used to shunt between Tamilnadu and Singapore and later he stopped visiting his family altogether and since the communication channels werent so good at that time, we don’t know what happened to him.
I have a rudrakshamala of him with me. They tell that he was a great saivite and used to visit temples in forests etc. But then how come he had vaipattis? How could he forget his family here? I don’t know the answers. He was periyappa of my grandfather and was into trading.
There was a relative lady of mine, she must be around 75 now. She was a concubine to a wealthy landlord. All the family members used to speak ill of her at the behind. But she was invited for family functions and her sons married in the same caste and there was no outward discrimination. When I think about that now, I presume that may be her ‘vaipattan’ (is it the right word??) may be from the same caste and so, she mightve been adjusted into the social fabrique and tolerated!!
When I talk this topic with the elders, then inform that once, having a vaipatti was considered as a status symbol for any wealthy ,physically fit landlord. Ofcourse these mightve been a minority only. But I don’t know as to the extent of this practice being prevalent in the society.
Some of these females couldve had their freedom intact with some degree of respectability from the society too. The elders tell that noone will look at them wrongly or will approach them in those days. There was peace as far as sexual offences against women were concerned. Women of any age could go alone in isolated places and yet they weren’t molested or harmed in any way. Even those violent fellows who used to murder their brothers during fights, never used to harm females when they were walking alone in lone tracks and an attempt by one poli-samiyar during Thirumalai Naicker’s period, invited a special ordinance by the King and the female who resisted that fellow was honoured by the state and was taken in a procession over the elephant and honoured. The king ordered the immediate deportation of all the wanderers in his kingdom.
Oopss…I am again digressing…well while I was writing this, a chat friend of mine gave two buzzs, and asked as to what I am doin. I said that I am fantasising an oil massage with four vaipattis surrounding me! She retorted, ‘mothalla onnu kedaikutha, athukku vazhiyaparunga cholan’ and said grrrrrr and logged out!
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