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--- "Frederick Noronha(FN)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >As a Helecar, Santosh will be seen as belonging to a >certain caste (Saraswat Brahmin, in this case), >whether he so defines himself or not. There's little >he can do about it, short of disguising/dropping his >family name which might be both undesirable or still >unhelpful. > Frederick, I really appreciate your comments. But in my specific case you are entirely mistaken. My current surname, Helekar, does not reveal my caste at all. You see my family has one of those double surnames. My birth record in Portuguese shows both of those names. One of them reveals my caste. I no longer use that surname. It has been deliberately omitted in all but two official documents that I now have in my possession. That is one small way in which I renounced my caste, long before Goanet came into existence and Cipriano Fernandes and Mario Goveia became its enlightened subscribers. > >Maybe Dr Helecar will enlighten us about this. >Though we know he doesn't define himself in >religious terms, my point is that he well could, >if he wanted to. > Frederick, I hope you won't mind if I did what you ask above, another day. Cheers, Santosh