Iyer Poem

Iyer Poem
IYER POEM..A time line of Iyer life


Age: years and months bb ( before birth! )
Parents and grandparents are lamenting….
For the grandson who’s late in coming…..
Many a prayer and venduthal and vows….
Hoping for my arrival before the cows !
And finally, I did, that August morning…
Leaving all and sundry happily rejoicing.


Age: 6 Months
All these mamas and maamis have come here...
For a grand welcome of their new born fellow Iyer...
And my parents will feed food to me with a ring...
And give me a name long enough for you to sing...
Koundinya Gothra Koduvayoor Chamukutty Narayana Markandan Dorai,
but most won’t bother, and will simply call me “dey” !

Age: 10 years
Topping my class is an inborn talent I possess
Teachers & relatives, whom I never fail to impress
Daily dosage of idli, dosai, sambar, rice and curd
Who on earth do you think will not turn into a nerd?

Age: 18 years
Disembarking the “Rajula” at Madras, into the squalor,
Looking for a college that would be my alma mater,
“You should become an Injinear,” everyone chorussed,
So what to do, Engineering it was, as everyone else wanted.

Age: 23 Yrs
For five years, a struggle to keep afloat..
Against the hordes innumerable who gloat,
“we are the cream of India”, while partaking arrack & tea.
At last, yipeee... I completed my BTech in IIT...
These five years, they were the best time of my life,
I reminisced as I sailed back home to a new life ...

Age: 24 Years
(Single status in Malaysia)
It has been one long year since I have come here...
Time to start a family, before its too late...
Will leave for Madras on a 30 day leave...
And come back with a maami right up my sleeve...

Age: 30 Years
(Now married, struggling with samsaar)
I have two kids, but there is a gripping fear...
Both of them have no signs of being an Iyer...
Narayanan & Vasudevan we named them fondly...
But Jai & Viju I call them if I want them to even reply...
But so what if they didn’t become Iyers,
They would, in fact become Injinears…

Age: 60 Years
(sudah retire )
I am in Palakkad, with my ever faithful wife...
But my kids stayed there and think we don't have a life...
Tirupati, Guruvayoor, Shabarimala all we've been to...
Sun TV is our faithful friend which we always turn to...
The overgrown garden is my dream farm in the making
As I sit on the massage chair all day, munching the kacang, thinking,
“Are we going to be the last of the brilliant Iyer generation?”
To our children, tradition and culture seem only a botheration!
But then, they have values, which naturally are more valuable..
So all is not lost, because with values, life is salvageable.

Plagiarised & adapted with apologies from “A Tamil Brahmin Iyer”