Saumya Ancheri of ACJ interviews Narayanan Nambudripad, who’s been rocking college campuses for the last four years across Bombay, Bangalore and Chennai.
Psst! Watch out for a follow-up exclusive performance from N himself!
Women, as the prime possession of the patriarch, are valuable in their chastity.
Even so, as a Dalit woman, your chastity cannot be protected like an upper caste woman’s, your goodness therefore, dies even as you are born into your new family.
The burden of a Dalit man when a beautiful girl is born to him! How can he protect her from the wandering eyes of men who are stronger than him in society’s eyes?
Identities are fractured creations, you are not a human being, you are a woman.
you are not just a woman, you are a Jacobite woman and the priest will put your husband’s ring on your hand and read out how warnings against women from Proverbs at your wedding.
you are not just Jacobite, you are descended from the earliest Malayalis taught at St’ Thomas’ knees and therefore, of aristocratic lineage.You were once Brahmin, and you may choose a husband who is a Brahmin Christian.
You are not just Malayali, you are from Kottayam, and you know what they say about Kottayam achayans. A friend says, “as an archetype, filthy rich spoilt men who love themselves a little too much. they are the top rung of snobs in kerala.”
You are everything that was breathed before you were born, you carry your grandparents on your shoulder and in your bones and every response you ever make forms part of the pool of labels you belong to - even if you are simply a reaction to all the labels stuck on you.
