Continuing divides

In Bangalore, I’ve recovered that introductions travel a quiescent choreography, 1 truthful acquainted cipher bothers to question it. The archetypal condemnation is straightforward enough: a sanction and a relational anchor. The 2nd sentence, though, is wherever the existent enactment happens. It signals not property but status, a speedy sketch of wherever this idiosyncratic sits successful the country’s endlessly negotiated societal hierarchy. And, of course, this enactment disappears wholly if the introducer decides the résumé won’t impress. I grew up proceeding these lines tossed astir truthful casually they astir felt similar punctuation.

On a sticky Saturday day astatine a gastrobar successful Indiranagar, successful that acquainted Bangalore humidity, you tin perceive things like: “This is Rajiv — an aged workfellow of mine. He’s present the Managing Director of Unilever.” “This is Fatima, a friend. She went to IIM.” “This is Piyush, from our neighborhood. His begetter owns Britannia.” Sometimes these introductions unfold close successful beforehand of you, similar a tiny nationalist show successful which you’re some the taxable and the unwilling audience. And arsenic beingness progresses, the “second sentence”, the societal verdict, begins to shift. At the moment, excavation is: “He goes to Columbia.” Just arsenic Piyush has been immortalised arsenic “the Britannia kid”, I’ve seemingly go “the feline who goes to Columbia”.

To a Western ear, this tin dependable similar gaudy societal hierarchism, a shrinking of the vast, contradictory sprawl of a quality being into a azygous credential. But successful the subcontinent, the “second sentence” is much than shorthand; it’s a benignant of taste haiku. Maybe it’s the distilled essence of what counts arsenic achievement. Maybe it’s a hint to what radical worth astir astir you — your rung connected the societal ladder, polished and held up to the light. Maybe, successful a unusual way, it becomes your legacy.

Clearly, I’m not successful favour of the 2nd sentence. At the aforesaid time, I’m not upset with the friends and relatives who inactive unrecorded successful that world, who dainty the 2nd condemnation arsenic people arsenic a handshake. I don’t blasted them for participating successful the tradition; it’s the h2o they’ve ever swum in, the grammar of societal beingness they absorbed without ever being taught. I’m nary taste theorist, but it’s hard not to spot this full signifier arsenic a bequest of the 2 large forces that shaped the subcontinent: capitalism and colonialism. I similar to telephone them the 2 large Cs. Part of what makes the “second sentence” truthful durable is that it didn’t originate retired of nowhere. A nine trained for centuries to benignant and beryllium sorted nether empire was already fluent successful the connection of hierarchy. Ranking wasn’t a habit, it was a endurance mechanism. So erstwhile Independence arrived and the aged categories began to suffer their authoritative sanction, the instinct didn’t disappear. It simply reached for caller material. Instead of lineage oregon tegument tone, radical began to prime up the modern metrics astatine hand: wealth, occupation titles, degrees, institution names — the shorthand markers of modern meritocracy. The hierarchy stayed intact; it conscionable updated its vocabulary.

Old claims of lineage gave mode to newer ones: Amazon salaries, Ivy League placements, villas successful gated communities disconnected Sarjapur Road. Of course, caste ne'er genuinely vanished from this architecture. It simply wove itself astir these newer markers, shaping who inherited capital, who gained entree to elite schools, and whose successes were deemed “natural”. In galore ways, wealth and caste became intertwined currencies. One visible, the different softly underwriting it. And the 2nd condemnation became the mundane look of that combined inheritance, dressed up successful the vocabulary of résumés and LinkedIn pages.

Anyone who’s sat done an Intro to Econ lecture knows the 3 canonical functions of money: mean of exchange, store of value, portion of account. What they don’t archer you is however neatly those aforesaid functions representation onto societal life. You spot it successful the smallest interactions — astatine meal tables, wedding halls, adjacent WhatsApp groups — wherever radical commercialized credentials the mode others commercialized currency. A store of worth ensures that the children of those astatine the apical thin to enactment there; everyone already knows which families “come from money”. A mean of speech creates a logic of transactionality: the crushed uncles astatine parties ask, “Where does helium enactment now?” isn’t curiosity, it’s calibration. And the portion of account? That 1 practically begs you to fertile people.

If someone’s interning astatine Goldman Sachs, oregon has got into Harvard, oregon conscionable bought a villa successful Sarjapur, it slips into speech with the aforesaid inevitability arsenic a terms tag. Suddenly, everyone has a fig attached to them, adjacent if it’s ne'er said retired loud.

Money besides offered thing else: a metric by which the recently autarkic taxable could measurement himself against his erstwhile ruler. It’s astir comic, successful a tragic way. The subcontinent adopted a capitalist imaginativeness that promised parity. A brownish man, the reasoning went, could yet basal enarthrosis to enarthrosis with the achromatic man, provided their slope balances matched. And this, perhaps, is wherever the 2nd condemnation becomes astir revealing. It’s ne'er conscionable a enactment successful an introduction; it’s a ledger entry, an effort to situate a idiosyncratic wrong an ever-shifting equilibrium expanse of presumption and aspiration.

What ever unsettles maine is however cleanable my ain 2nd condemnation sounds. “He goes to Columbia” makes it look similar I walked determination successful a consecutive line, arsenic if everything down it had been reduced to inheritance noise. It’s flattering successful the mode a half-truth is flattering: bully to hear, but unsettling successful what it leaves out.

I sometimes wonderment what my ain 2nd condemnation volition crook into erstwhile “He goes to Columbia” yet expires. These labels person a predictable shelf-life. In a fewer years, it mightiness beryllium “He works at…” or, aboriginal still, “He bought a location in…” tidy small descriptors that marque a beingness dependable acold neater than it is. I cognize I won’t beryllium the 1 choosing immoderate of these lines. Other radical volition constitute them for me, conscionable arsenic they ever have. And if I’m being honest, I’m not supra that precise aforesaid instinct myself. I’d similar to ideate I’ve outgrown the request for shorthand — that distance, education, oregon adulthood has inoculated maine against it.

But I occasionally inactive drawback myself reaching for the aforesaid shortcuts erstwhile I speech astir others, introducing them by their internships oregon degrees arsenic if those facts unsocial could summarise a quality being. The information is that I americium fluent successful the precise grammar I assertion to resist. Part of maine dislikes that; different portion recognises however profoundly these habits run, however earthy it feels to trust connected tiny verbal labels. So possibly the existent irony is that, aft penning each this, aft tracing the lineage of the “second sentence” done empire, caste, capitalism, and gossip, I’ve astir apt fixed myself a caller one. Somewhere, idiosyncratic volition inevitably accidental it with the aforesaid breezy assurance that uncles, aunties, oregon adjacent peers usage erstwhile discussing occupation titles oregon houses: “Oh him? He’s the feline who wrote that portion astir introductions.”

ss7049@columbia.edu