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vernon : how to find one!s caste?
if your elders cannot ( or will not ) answer your question, then ,i am afraid, you should be proud that you do not belong to the so called uppercastes. i think, you belong to ! er ! caste meaning other than those two.
er in konkani means others, and if it is of any satisfaction to you, you should be lucky because er for your descendants means elizabeth regina class, the rulers of the future, with the two upper castes marching into marginalized or ghetoised classes, not unlike jews ( god!s people, aren!t they ? )
i take this opportunity to delve into some mundane aspects of the caste system of catholic goa especially during the 1940s and 50s when the catholic caste was at ita apogee. i also feel that i owe it to my brothers and sisters of all classes who were born and bred away from goa and have no first hand knowledge of what transpired in goa during the iberian rule.
the hereditary caste system (as opposed to the meritorious class system ) is an unique social system that is found in the indian sub continent only.
people were generally classified into three twice born castes: brahmins, kshatriyas, vaisyas - traders, and vaisyas - farmers. others (er) who are in absolute majority were called sudras including the most intellectual of them all -artizans. suffice it to say that artizans were the percursors of modern technology and science that brough so much glory to europe and north america as against the chaotic indian subcontinent.
when the portuguese missionaries came into contact with the hindu population , the real or shudh brahmins ran away with their idols leaving valuable land and equally precious paddyfields behind. brahmins in those days were like living gods and one simply cannot understand why in the world they would accept a totally strange religion. as for kshatriyas , there was only one hindu ruling family and that too in the distant past, namely kadambas of chandor goa.they obviously could not have so many oftheir descendants to the catholic church of goa.
so there you have,vernon, devout catholics dividing themselved into three sections : bahmon, chardo and er. the !beauty ! of the caste system is that class is automatically attached to the caste, which is not the case from lthe scientific point of view. agreed that bahmons had a high percentage of individuals with class ( i.e. culture, education , family wealth etc ) but also there were bahmons without class called kashti bahmon. and so was the situation within the chardo class and more of them were of low class generally known as podehr chardo. at this stage i dont think that the bahmon and the chardo have any new adjectives left for the er class. they used them all during the four and half centuries of colonial rule.
the er class individual left holy goa for bombay to earn his llivelihood and with the part of his savings he tried to educate his children. i do not know much about the fate of er children in the english medium schools in goa but i do know much about the fate of the er children who were lucky enough to gain entry in the lyceum ( portuguese secondary schools) and the seminary. they were subjected to insults, humiliations, ridicule and taunts by bahmon and chardo children with the connivance of the teachers of their communities. yes, there were padris teaching in the lyceum too.
a bahmon padri who was full of christian love ( as long as one remained within his station ) became someone else when he dealt with the er children ( hem tuca nuim) . an average chardo padri whose intellectual level descended well below the knees : ( tumim quiteac eiliai re inga, kamanc vos)
may be some of readers will come up with some other !pleasant! encounters with our wonderful society.
antonio
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