A small clan called Karna Kayastha....

Yes, being a Karn Kayastha , I decided to write my first blog on my identity. Before starting , I should rather clarify that I donot wish to glorify my identity or promote any casteism but want readers to know about my roots, identity and the rich culture attached to it.

We are the descendants of Chitragupta, whose task is recording the deeds of humanity, upholding justice and the rule of law and judging whether human beings go to heaven or hell upon death.

I remember my grandmother always telling me and my siblings that we are a part of a big family of Chitragupta, who has twelve sons. She would name them as Mathur, Gaur, Bhatnagar, Saxena, Ambashtha, Nigam, Karn, Kulshreshtha, Srivastava, Suryadhwaja, Valmiki, Asthana. As a kid, I would think that in that case all my friends who have these surnames are like me only. And believe me, it used to give me a great pleasure.

I was born and brought in a very small town of Bihar, which can be very easily passed as a developed village with the kind of infrastructure and people it had. A bihari kid is born and brought up in the environment where from a small age they know what is a caste supposed to be. So, I was also all the time aware of the fact that I am an uppercaste kid, but always used to get confused then why we have subcastes?

Anyways, I would not ponder on to that much, may be I can write on this in my next blog. :)

Ok, so coming back to my clan or community, Karna Kayastha. We are also called Maithils, because most of us have our origin to two districts of Bihar that is Darbhanga and Madhubani, and both these districts are "maithili" speaking belt. "Maithili" is considered a very sweet language, and it is derived from the word "Mithila" where our beloved Sita was born.

These belts are not very economically rich belts, but when you visit the villages here, you will still find that rich cultural heritage in each and every household. Whichever occassion it may be , birth of a child, a death, a wedding, it has its own charm around it.

To be honest, I myself didn't take all the rituals seriously till the time I was married to another Karna Kayastha!

A Karna Kayastha grows up listening to maithili folk songs which is an integral part of any function that we have.We make ample use of Madhubani Paintings in our weddings. Earlier, when the weddings used to take place from our villages, all the ladies would gather and use natural colors to decorate the wall of the house. The room where the bride and groom are supposed to stay which is called "Kohbar Ghar" in maithili is painted with all sorts of motifs from Madhubani Painting which symbolises various things. When we were kids, me and my cousins used to get super excited when we were asked to make some flower patters on the walls. We realised , it was not a simple drawing, it meant uniform lines, colors everything and above all it must look beautiful!