Paper on 3 articles - Anthropology

From ‘evil eye’ anxiety to the desirability of envy: Status, consumption and the

politics of visibility in urban south India

Melanie Dean

Competing motivations characterise consumption practices in contemporary south India. While status-conscious Tamils are desirous of displaying wealth so as to signal kauravam (‘prestige’), such public displays risk eliciting tirusti (‘evil eye’). Based on field research in urban Tamil Nadu, the article argues that this tension—between the desire to display wealth and signal social status, and the fear that such displays will invite supernatural attack—is being resolved through newfound practices of tirusti prophylaxis. Prophylactic amulets are used to manage and divert the tirusti-bearing gazes of onlookers from things of value. The newest amulets of the Tamil Nadu public sphere capitalise upon the eye-catching ability of the normative tirusti prophylactic to directly index, rather than mask, the social status that protective amulets are deployed to protect. Today, a range of expensive consumer goods are utilised as prophylactics. Because the need to protect oneself from tirusti can itself be a sign of status, such expensive amulets serve to simultaneously protect and project the prestige of their deployers. Lower-status individuals, however, are policed in their acts of tirusti prophylaxis. Here, a politics of visibility—with respect to caste, class, gender and skin colour—conditions the ‘appropriateness’ of acts of tirusti prophylaxis.

Keywords: evil eye, consumption, class, symbolic capital, south India

I Introduction

The act of consumption is a fundamentally social one. The things that one buys and the ways in which one displays or deploys them are an important means of self-consciously conveying messages about one’s social status and

Contributions to Indian Sociology 47, 2 (2013): 185–216 SAGE Publications Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore/Washington DC DOI: 10.1177/0069966713482999

Melanie Dean is at the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Email: [email protected]

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aspirations (Appadurai 1986; Bourdieu 1984, 1993; Veblen 1934[1899]), and a powerful means of communicating one’s position in social space (Appadurai 1986; Douglas and Isherwood 1996). Since the process of eco- nomic liberalisation began in the early 1990s, the Indian middle class has grown and increasingly been re-imagined as a ‘consumer class’ (Deshpande 2003; Fernandes 2000a; Varma 1998). Conspicuous consumption has be- come the emblem of national progress in India, and for the middle class and its aspirants, increased access to new commodities has emerged as a central indicator of the benefits of economic liberalisation (Fernandes 2000b).

But even as increased economic growth and consumption signal indi- vidual and national progress, they have also led to increased resentment and envy between families and neighbours (Osella and Osella 1999, 2000; cf. Pocock 1973). Urban south Indians in Tamil Nadu actively want to be seen consuming high-priced goods, because of their capacity to accrue kauravam or ‘prestige’ to them and to thereby raise their statuses within their families and local communities. But in an environment where the act of seeing is not passive but is understood to have powerful and real effects—auspicious, in the case of darśan, but highly inauspicious and destructive, in the case of tirusti or ‘evil eye’—the conspicuous consump- tion and display of commodities can be particularly fraught.1 Attracting the visual attention of others can be problematic in that it can elicit poten- tially destructive gazes in the form of tirusti, but it can also be considered beneficial as others see that one has status and prestige. As Osella and Osella write, speaking of contemporary consumption practices in Kerala, the conspicuous display of goods remains a ‘double-edged sword’ (1999: 1011) for many in urban south India.

1 Darśan has been well studied (Babb 1981; Eck 1998), while tirusti has not. Darśan—the auspicious act of intersubjective viewing between devotee and the divine—and tirusti can be understood as different sides of the same coin. Kan tirusti (literally, ‘eye-sight’) and, more commonly, simply tirusti (literally, ‘sight’, from Sanskrit) are used interchangeably and taken to have the same meaning in everyday Tamil speech. Both terms refer to a particular mode of looking and seeing in which the gazes of others (be they envious, admiring or loving) can be harmful and even destructive. Other Tamil synonyms for tirusti include tīya kan (literally, ‘fiery-eye’), tirusti tōsam (literally, ‘tirusti defect/disorder’) and the more colloquial terms kannēru (also kannūru, literally,‘eye-throw’), kannāvi (‘eye-ghost/spirit’) or titti (a Tamil modification of the Sanskrit loan word tirusti). While I occasionally use the English term ‘evil eye’ to refer to tirusti, it is important to differentiate between these two terms. ‘Evil eye’ implies a sense of intentionality and malevolence that is largely absent in the belief complex as it is found in Tamil Nadu, where it is understood to be prototypically unintentional, unmediated and the direct result of visual attention.

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While the ability to elicit the envy of others is coming to be re- conceptualised as a sign of success in modern India, people in Madurai (the temple city in southern Tamil Nadu where much of the research on which this article is based was carried out) remain ambivalent about attracting the visual attention of their peers, even as they seek to performatively cre- ate middle-class identities for themselves through highly visible displays of wealth. In this article, I show how the conspicuous consumption and display of commodities is not necessarily at odds with concerns about tirusti (see Photo 1). On the contrary, I argue that the tirusti prophylactic2

2 I use the English term ‘prophylactic’ to refer to material forms that are deployed to protect against ‘evil eye’ attack. The closest Tamil term for this would be parikāram, which refers both to protective material amulets as well as rituals that are intended to protect against, or mitigate the effects of, ‘evil eye’ attack.

Photo 1 Cell phones, gold and tirusti dots

Source: By author.

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is a site at which the dialectical tension between the desire to display one’s wealth to one’s peers and the fear that the visual attention of one’s peers will cause harm is resolved.

Across Tamil Nadu, protective media—from polka-dotted pumpkins and lemons to garish demon masks and effigies—are prominently de- ployed on everything from homes to vehicles to protect property and person from tirusti. Prophylactics function to neutralise, contain and divert the tirusti of onlookers. While prophylactics are specifically de- signed to achieve this supernatural effect (for example, non-desiccating plants such as pumpkins and aloe may be used to ‘soak up’ tirusti or mirrors may be used to reflect and refract dangerous gazes), there is an unmistakable second-order, symbolic function of these protective media as well. In public view, costly commodities are likely to have garish and conspicuous tirusti prophylactics accompanying them. And because pro- phylactic media are closely associated with things of value—typically, being quite literally affixed to them—they have the potential to signal social status in their own right (that is, by presupposing that the person who deploys such prophylactics has something of value to protect). Clearly visible signs of tirusti prophylaxis, then, not only function as protection from tirusti but are also signs that an individual possesses something of value, something that requires protection from the envi- ous or admiring visual attention of others. In this article, I argue that this secondary function of tirusti prophylactics—their function as status symbols—helps to mediate the ‘double-edged sword’ of consumption in contemporary south India.

In present-day Tamil Nadu, the capacity of tirusti prophylactics to convey status is being foregrounded, and indeed strategically capitalised upon, by upwardly mobile and status conscious individuals seeking to raise their status, and also by advertisers who are keen to sell products through the commodification of envy. In the re-analysis of tirusti prophylaxis as status symbol, the capacity of the prophylactic to attract visual attention (even as it deflects concomitant tirusti) is being exploited in order to draw, rather than deflect, the attention of others to one’s wealth and prestige. The result of this development is a decidedly modern transformation in ‘evil eye’ prophylactic form and function: hybrid forms—costly prophylactics which simultaneously convey status and distinction while ostensibly neutralising tirusti—are emerging. Expensive commodities, items which had needed to be protected from the deleterious effects of the envious

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gaze in the first place, are now ironically being re-interpreted as amulets which protect against tirusti.

Rather than an obsolete and anachronistic ‘superstition’ or mūtanampikkai, fading away under conditions of modernity, tirusti is a key site for the negotiation of status in contemporary south India. In this article, I am concerned to show how individuals strategically capi- talise upon the multiple levels at which tirusti protective media operate in order to garner kauravam for themselves in the eyes of those whose opinion (and ironically, tirusti) is of consequence: family, friends and neighbours. I argue that people do this both by taking advantage of the supernatural first-order function of traditional ‘evil eye’ prophylactic forms as being able to attract and control visual attention (as they absorb harmful tirusti), and also by strategically foregrounding the second-order, social function of ‘evil eye’ prophylaxis as signalling that a person is of high social status and likely to be envied. As I show, beliefs about, and practices of, consumption and tirusti prophylaxis entail a politics of visibility with respect to caste, class and even skin colour, within which an individual’s public displays of tirusti prophylaxis and acts of conspicuous consumption are constrained in very similar ways. I conclude the article with a discussion of how discourses of taste and distinction are emerging with respect to protecting oneself from tirusti attack as those amulets which attract auspiciousness, rather than repel inauspiciousness, are coming to be considered the most ‘decent’ or ‘tasteful’, while remaining restricted to only the most elite urban Tamils by virtue of their cost.

II The problem of the ‘evil eye’

I conducted field research in ‘A. Colony’ in Madurai, a mixed-caste and mixed-class community consisting primarily of Kallar and dalit day la- bourers, and a few upwardly mobile families with primary wage earners who worked in office jobs (āppisttāppu). Called kan tirusti or simply tirusti in Tamil, the ‘evil eye’ is considered to be an inadvertent, yet destructive type of visual attention, and averting it was a cause of daily concern for many people in A. Colony—especially for those who saw themselves as upwardly mobile with respect to their peers. Tirusti emanates from the avaricious and even admiring gazes of a person, and is considered capable

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of bringing harm both to people and things.3 Contrary to how the belief in ‘evil eye’ is commonly stereotyped, it is not strangers or those of markedly different hierarchical statuses whose tirusti is most feared but rather one’s peers—neighbours, family members and others of relatively equal standing—whose envy is considered the most dangerous.

For my primary informants—Pallar, Paraiyar and Kallar women in their upper 30s to mid-40s—peers included female neighbours (pakkattavīttukkāraṅka) of similar age who lived in close proximity, fe- male affines and extended family members (contakkāraṅka) who may or may not be of the same socio-economic standing. Informants were most concerned with how their ‘means’ or vacati compared with that of their peers. This is reflected in changing standards for marriage alliances, which are increasingly determined not just by whether the potential partner is the proper relation (i.e., a marriageable cousin) or of the right caste, but also by whether the prospective family has sufficient vacati. Residents of A. Colony wanted to increase their social standing with respect to those closest to them, especially their in-laws and neighbours, and sought ways to have their newfound statuses ratified by these peers. At the same time, the tirusti of peers was most feared, for it could easily destroy the status that one worked so hard to achieve.

Because visible displays of wealth are likely to elicit the visual attention of onlookers, acts of conspicuous consumption are thought to make one particularly vulnerable to tirusti. At sites where they are considered most vulnerable to tirusti attack, Tamils are careful to ritually guard against the potentially harmful gazes of onlookers through the deployment of con- spicuous and eye-catching amulets and in the performance of diagnostic and ameliorative rituals. On special occasions, such as first ear-piercing, weddings or coming-of-age functions, where displays of wealth are central and where gifts of commodities are publicly made, rituals such as āratti4 are performed for those giving gifts to avert or mitigate the potentially deleterious effects of the envious or admiring gazes of onlookers. Vehicles that constantly pass through public space, such as lorries, autorickshaws,

3 Tirusti results not just from gazes that are envious, but also from those that are loving. Mother’s eye or ammā kan, for instance, is considered by many Tamils to be the most powerful and destructive form of tirusti (Dean 2011: 216–69; Trawick 1990).

4 Āratti in its most basic form involves circling a camphor flame in front of a deity, person or thing in order to ‘bind’ (cuttutal) or ‘dislodge’ (kalittal) the tirusti that may have accrued as a result of visual attention.

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buses and cars, require daily protection from tirusti. Such vehicles are painted with eyes on the front to counter any untoward gazes and are adorned with amulets—from black tassels and demon faces to conch shells and alum wrapped with ropes of human hair—in order to divert the tirusti transmitted through envious gazes or otherwise ‘invested’ acts of looking. Everything from tractors, sugarcane juicers, scales and sewing machines, to personal computers and ceiling fans warrant the conspicu- ous application of protective tirusti markings or amulets such as lemons placed in glasses filled with water (see Photo 2).

Photo 2 Protecting commodities

Source: By author.

While people may fear tirusti, there are occasions when highly vis- ible displays of wealth are considered not only suitable, but absolutely necessary. This is increasingly the case for lower status groups such as Kallars and dalits, who just two generations ago were largely practicing bridewealth but for whom, increasingly costly dowries are now the norm.5 During rites of passage like marriage, coming-of-age and ear-piercings,

5 The former practice of bridewealth among dalits and Kallars in Tamil Nadu has given way, over the past few decades, to the type of dowry exchange characteristic of Brahmin and higher caste marriages (Kapadia 1995: 53–54). This shift has taken place in response to the idea that displays of wealth through dowry can help entail a higher relative status within caste hierarchies (Ifeka 1989; Pocock 1973).

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the cīr varicai (literally, ‘line of gifts’) is an essential component, arriving to the accompaniment of firecrackers and drumbeats. Here, relatives want to be seen to give generously, and the quality and quantity of their gifts are publicly evaluated by the family members, friends and neighbours in attendance. In everyday life, women may feel ‘naked’ (motte kalattu, literally, a ‘bald neck’) if they do not have a gold chain to wear when they go to family functions such as weddings. Middle-class aspirants in A. Colony, while often preoccupied with deflecting tirusti, nevertheless considered the symbolic value, understood locally in terms of kauravam afforded by certain commodities—from gold jewellery to refrigerators— to outweigh their concerns about the potentially deleterious effects of the envious gazes of relatives, friends and neighbours.

In India’s liberalised economy, increasingly available foreign and luxury goods such as cell phones and higher-end motorbikes afford an important means for displaying symbolic capital—particularly for middle- class aspirants (Dickey, this issue). Durable consumer goods—televisions, ‘mixies’, electric grinders, refrigerators, cell phones, metal bureaus and ceiling fans—and the ability to avail oneself of them are both referred to in Tamil as vacati, a word which can be translated as convenience but which also refers to status-raising commodities, financial resources or means, more generally.6 A person who possesses luxury goods not only enjoys the convenience that vacati affords, but its accompanying kauravam as well. Accruing kauravam to oneself is a fundamentally visual process: your peers have to see your vacati. Not having any wealth to show, par- ticularly at ritual sites, results in a loss of face (referred to as a ‘prestige problem’ or kaurava piraccinai) which people try to avoid at all costs, even if that involves taking large loans from unscrupulous moneylenders. In A. Colony, it was rumoured that ‘Amutā’, a Paraiyar woman in her early

6 As Dickey (2012) has shown, people in Madurai in the early 1990s were not identifying themselves as ‘middle class’ or natuttara irukkiravaṅka (literally, ‘people in the middle’) as is more common today. During that period, it was more common to hear people differentiate between panakkāraṅka (literally, ‘moneyed-people’) or vacatiyullavaṅka (literally, ‘those with means’) and ēlai (‘the poor’) or vacatiyillātavaṅka (literally, ‘those without means’). Dickey argues that one of the new features of contemporary consumption practices in Madurai is the availability of wide variety of consumer goods and the finely nuanced distinctions that they enable one to make between people of different means or vacati. In A. Colony, while there is a growing awareness of the concept of a ‘middle class’, the most common class designators which are used, particularly among poor people, remain limited to those which distinguish between people who have vacati and those who do not.

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30s with two young children, had obtained a secret loan from the ladies’ association (makalir kalañciyam) to save her financially-strapped brother the embarrassment of being unable to fulfil his ritual obligations at the kātu kuttutal (ear-piercing) of her children.7 Amutā sought to keep this fact secret, especially from her in-laws, extended family and neighbours. Such examples show how the negotiation of kauravam must be established and maintained through the estimation of peers who, through rumour, gossip and other forms of discursive ratification, determine whether a person does or does not have kauravam.

The relative level of prestige that a person enjoys in A. Colony is evalu- ated not only with respect to the extent to which he or she can sufficiently perform ritual obligations, but also with respect to the costly consumer goods he or she is able to afford—from gold jewellery and mobile phones to electric grinders and refrigerators. While individuals in A. Colony feel compelled to display their wealth publicly amongst their peers, this nec- essarily attracts the visual attention and concomitant tirusti of onlookers. The status-conscious and status-seeking residents of A. Colony are put in a double bind. They must publicly display vacati in order to accrue kauravam, but such public displays make them vulnerable to tirusti attack. And though individuals may desire to protect themselves from ‘evil eye’, this too may be fraught, as we shall see below.

III The politics of visibility: The appropriateness

of consumption and ‘evil eye’ prophylaxis

Prophylactic media work to protect people and things of value by con- trolling the direction of the gaze, either by repelling it altogether or by attracting it to the amulet itself where accompanying tirusti is bound and ef- fectively neutralised. This supernatural function of ‘evil eye’ prophylactics to manage harmful tirusti contrasts with a second-order, symbolic function that is inherently social. ‘Evil eye’ prophylactics may be deployed to repel tirusti, but they can also be deployed to signal the status of the person whose appurtenance they protect. In one case, a profusion of prophylactic pumpkins on a newly constructed bungalow in a Madurai middle-class neighbourhood was remarked upon by neighbours and poor people who

7 Proper names used in this article are pseudonyms.

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lived nearby as being a sign of a panakkāraṅka (rich person). The owner, it was clear, not only had the money to afford numerous prophylactic pumpkins, but clearly possessed something of value that he was anxious to protect. The presence of prophylactics is not only conceptualised as performing a supernatural tirusti-neutralising function, but can also be taken as a sign that the individual who deploys them considers himself or herself to be a person of status.

This second-order, social function of the ‘evil eye’ prophylactic as conveying status is one that people are aware of in daily social interaction.8 Because people of high status are expected to require protection from the deleterious effects of the visual attention of onlookers, the performance of tirusti binding rituals, such as āratti, becomes an idiom for publicly show- ing respect and deference to high status individuals. When politicians, film stars and other VIPs are being received in public, they may be greeted not only with garlands, but with a flaming pumpkin—a ritual that, at one level, removes offending tirusti, but at another level serves to remind others of the individual’s privileged status as a person who attracts a great deal of attention (see Photo 3). The performance of such tirusti binding rituals constitutes a means by which an individual’s status is ratified by others. Just as it is expected that elaborate acts of tirusti binding are warranted for persons of high status, so too it is expected that those with means will deploy tirusti protective media to protect their person and property. So a person who deploys an ‘evil eye’ prophylactic on her property or person is taking a risk—will her peers ratify that she warrants protection from the ‘evil eye’?

Because tirusti prophylactics can be taken as signs of—and indeed, claims to—status, residents of A. Colony would often regiment and police their peers with respect to who could be seen publicly protecting themselves from tirusti. Here, a politics of visibility conditions who can be seen to engage in conspicuous, quotidian acts of ‘evil eye’ prophylaxis, one which simultaneously articulates with ideologies about who is entitled

8 Tirusti binding rituals (referred to as tirusti cuttutal [literally, ‘to circle the tirusti’] or tirusti kalittal [literally, ‘to dislodge the tirusti’]) serve as a key site for the negotiation of power and status within a family and community. Quotidian acts of tirusti binding are usually performed by mothers, wives, servants and employees—those who are in a structurally subordinate position with respect to those for whom they perform such ameliorative rituals. Tirusti binding rituals communicate messages about the relationship (and often, the status asymmetry) between performers of acts of tirusti binding and those who benefit from them.

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to engage in acts of conspicuous consumption.9 Even though poor and rich alike can and do experience tirusti attack, publicly observable types of ‘evil eye’ prophylaxis are deemed appropriate only for those who are of a social status which is considered likely to elicit the envy of others. An individual’s caste, class and even skin colour act to condition how her acts of tirusti prophylaxis and conspicuous consumption are evaluated by her peers and the community at large.

Photo 3 A priest performs āratti—using a flaming tirusti pūcanikkāy (‘tirusti pumpkin’)—for Tamil Nadu Congress Committee President M. Krishnaswamy at party headquarters

in Chennai

Source: Dinamalar, 20 November 2007.

9 This politics of visibility regarding who can be seen to consume and who can be seen to protect themselves from envy, articulates both with concerns of the body—with respect to gender, caste and skin colour—and with a ‘principle of appropriateness’ which, as Mines points out, is common to understandings of personhood in South Asia (2005: 74 passim). In south India, certain forms of conspicuous consumption are deemed inappropriate and unsuitable for lower-caste, uneducated and/or darker-skinned (karuppu, literally, ‘black’) individuals, whose consumption activities, should they exceed the limit of suitability (referred to as ‘decent’ or nākarīkam), are more likely to be thought to exhibit ātambaram (‘ostentation’). Higher caste individuals, like Brahmins, are considered by many (lower caste or dalit) A. Colony informants to be, by nature, more ‘decent’ in their acts of consumption.

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In south India, caste has long been a ‘condition of visibility’, to bor- row a useful concept from Srivatsan (2000: 93). Individuals from lower and dalit castes were historically policed with respect to which diacritics of status they could be seen to display. The lower-caste Shanars (known today as Nādārs) had to fight for the right of women from their commu- nity to cover their chests with an upper cloth.10 Shanar women were also prevented, on threat of violence, from carrying water vessels on their hips, a behavioural diacritic of higher-caste women, rather than on their heads as they had traditionally done.11 Even if they managed to make enough money to put tile roofs on their houses, Paraiyars were prevented from doing so on threat of violence from upper-caste individuals, who considered such niceties beyond the station of dalits and threatening to the caste order (Maragathavalliyar 2003[1930]: 56). Shanars were prevented from wearing gold jewellery and shoes, and were also prohibited from carrying umbrellas (Hardgrave 1969: 57)—items which are suggestive of someone of high status.12

This politics of visibility which has traditionally acted to limit the ways in which lower-caste individuals can display signs of social status is also at play in the ways in which a lower-status individual’s acts of tirusti prophylaxis are judged by peers. Inasmuch as these acts are interpreted as an implicit claim to status, lower-status individuals who engage in

10 For more on the ‘upper garment revolt’ and the ‘breast cloth controversy’ in 19th century Travancore, see Cohn (1996: 140–3) and Hardgrave (1968, 1969). Also see Osella and Osella for a discussion of the ‘sumptuary laws’ in force until the early 20th century in Travancore which prevented certain ‘unapproachable’ castes from wearing certain types of clothing, from wearing gold and from building two-storey houses (1999: 1003–4)—all consumption behaviours which were reserved for higher castes.

11 As Hardgrave (1969) points out, a primary way that Nādārs accomplished a degree of upward mobility for themselves as a caste group was to police Nādār women at the wells and ensure that they carried water vessels at their hips instead of on their heads.

12 In the era of Jim Crow, African Americans living in the Deep South were prohibited, under threat of violence, from carrying umbrellas lest they be judged by whites as ‘uppity’ (Powdermaker 1939: 112). In contemporary Tamil Nadu, umbrellas continue to be associated with people of high status. Gods are shaded by an umbrella during processions, and an umbrella is only considered appropriate for an individual who is fairer skinned and wishes to remain so (i.e., for someone who works an office job or a teacher, not a day-labourer who works in the sun). An old Tamil proverb attests to the power of the umbrella to convey status in Tamil culture, as well as to its caste associations: ‘If a wretched [low caste] man achieves any respectability, he’ll carry an umbrella at midnight’ (arpanukkup pavusu vantāl, arttarāttiriyil kudaippitippān).

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conspicuous tirusti prophylaxis may be ridiculed or otherwise policed for expressing a desire to deploy publicly observable amulets or for their anxious concern to perform tirusti binding rituals. It is expected that a rich and powerful woman such as Jayalalitha, head of the AIADMK party and current Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, would need to protect herself from the ‘evil eye’ and other forms of supernatural attack with extravagant apotropaic rituals. (Indeed, her propensity for consulting astrologers and other ritual practitioners for all range of pūjās and protective rituals is often noted in the Tamil language media.) But for a low-caste and poor woman such as ‘Muniyammāl’, a Pallar (dalit) woman in her late 30s, revealing that she is concerned about deflecting envious gazes was an invitation to ridicule—especially on the part of her sisters-in-law and immediate female neighbours, all of whom were doing better than her financially and some considerably so. Muniyammāl was nevertheless very concerned about tirusti. After all, by her own account, the tirusti of her own mother-in-law was to blame for her marital strife and financial ruin. To negotiate these competing concerns—to both protect herself from tirusti and avoid the ridicule of her in-laws—Muniyammāl was careful to hide the red string (cevappu kayiru), a common tirusti prophylactic which she tied around her waist, under her sari. She even considered taking it off altogether because she had been ridiculed by her husband for wearing it and was concerned that her sisters-in-law and other female neighbours would come to learn of it as well.

Muniyammāl’s husband told her it was ridiculous for her to fear tirusti, not only because she was poor, but also because she was darker-skinned or karuppu (literally, ‘black’), a trait that is normatively considered highly undesirable for a Tamil woman. To be cevappu (literally, ‘red’, a term used to refer to someone who is fair) is a prized trait in south India, and fairer- skinned children and women are considered more vulnerable to the envious gazes of others. The notion that a karuvācci (an abuse term for a darker- skinned woman), as Muniyammāl’s mother-in-law called her, would seek to protect herself from envious gazes was considered laughable by women in the neighbourhood (both by those who were considered cevappu and by those who were considered karuppu by comparison). Because tirusti prophylactic rituals and amulets (many of which, as we shall see, are ‘eye- catching’ [or kavarcci], by design) are normally deployed only by those who are considered enviable by conventional standards, darker-skinned women often disguise their attempts to deflect tirusti in order to avoid ridicule.

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While darker-skinned women in A. Colony may hide the evidence of their acts of tirusti prophylaxis, fairer-skinned women are often conspicu- ously and overtly marked with them. ‘Karuppāyi’, a Kallar housewife in her early 40s, was considered the most cevappu among her friends and neighbours in A. Colony. When she was seven-years-old, her parents had the eye of the goddess (amman kan) tattooed on her hand and small black dots tattooed between her eyes and on her chin. These conspicuous marks were all intended to deflect the tirusti that her parents were certain she would invariably attract for being so cevappu in relation to her peers. Karuppāyi’s tattoos served as a ubiquitous reminder of her fairness and her enviability to her female friends in the neighbourhood, who agreed that she needed them because she was cevappu. Skin colour here acts as a proxy for caste and class distinctions, and serves as a ubiquitously present constraint on the (in)visible deployment of tirusti prophylaxis.

While it was expectable that Karuppāyi would require visible marks of tirusti protection, this was not the case for ‘Karuttammāl’, a woman in her late 30s from the Putura Vannan (Dhobi) community. While Karuttammāl feared tirusti, she only sported a tirusti pottu—a black dot that wards against ‘evil eye’—on the bottom of her foot, that she would apply secretly and which was invisible to others. The existence of this dot was discovered by Muniyammāl who found it humorous and later pointed it out during an interview with Karuttammāl. When I asked Karuttammāl why she put the protective marking in such an inconspicuous place, she said she did not want anyone to see it because people would make fun of her for doing it, should they find out (‘If they see [it] they will tease [me]’, or ‘pāttā kintal pannuvāṅka’). Karuttammāl was considered karuppu and was also poor, both normatively undesirable statuses which are generally considered unlikely to elicit envy.

As these cases show, a politics of (in)visibility constrains the ability of people of different social statuses to show concern about tirusti. Such evaluations judge concern about tirusti as an implicit claim to status. Criti- cism, ridicule and other discursive policing, on the part of one’s peers, of the (in)appropriateness of one’s visible display of tirusti protection focus more on the second-order, social reading of tirusti prophylactics as status symbols, than they do on the actual supernatural efficacy of prophylactics to divert and re-channel harmful tirusti. Just as women who are of a lower status (i.e., lower-caste, darker-skinned and poorer women) are ridiculed by relatives and neighbours for protecting themselves from envy, they are similarly more likely to be ridiculed should they engage in other

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acts of status raising, such as undertaking visible acts of consumption or otherwise demonstrating a desire to achieve a degree of upward mobil- ity. This was the bone in the craw of Muniyammāl’s mother-in-law who, before Muniyammāl lost her social standing due to tirusti, had regularly and publicly lamented the fact that her karuvācci of a daughter-in-law had gold jewellery while she, ‘fair’ or cevappu by comparison, did not.

In A. Colony, just as a darker-skinned woman protecting herself from tirusti is considered laughable, a darker-skinned woman or man protecting herself or himself from the sun with an umbrella is similarly considered a joke. While a low-caste individual carrying an umbrella would be unlikely to be met with violence,13 as was common in caste policing in the past, such an action is still likely to invite ridicule, especially for darker-skinned women. For Muniyammāl, wearing a conspicuous tirusti prophylactic and carrying an umbrella were both fraught actions for the same reason: both signalled to her peers in the neighbourhood that she considered herself worthy of protection, either from envious glances or from the sun’s rays. Umbrellas and tirusti prophylactics were considered unnecessary for Muniyammāl, particularly by her female affines and close neighbours, because she was considered to be of lower status (i.e., dalit, poor and karuppu).14 As we can see, then, the insults and scorn heaped upon lower-status women who try to protect themselves from tirusti is continuous with the policing of other quotidian status symbols, from sartorial codes to forms of bodily comport- ment, long common in inter-caste relations in the modern era.

In A. Colony, a woman’s skin colour and her socio-economic status are the deciding factors in whether or not her acts of tirusti prophylaxis are considered appropriate by her peers. However, the same tirusti prophy- lactics which would be considered laughable for lower-status women like

13 Violence against dalits continues in Madurai district. On 26 December 2009, three dalit young men and a young pregnant dalit woman were viciously attacked by a caste Hindu mob on account of a dalit youth having touched the ‘sacred umbrella’ (kōvil kutai) covering the deity Ayappan during a temple procession in Uthangudi on the outskirts of Madurai (Dalits Attacked for Touching ‘Ceremonial Umbrella’, The Hindu, 30 December 2009).

14 It is important to note that those who ridiculed Muniyammāl for carrying umbrellas and deploying tirusti prophylactics were not necessarily people of higher status than her. Poor women who were deemed to be as karuppu as Muniyammāl were just as likely to ridicule her attempts to protect herself from the sun and harmful tirusti as were women who were financially better off or cevappu. Policing behaviours, because they are prototypically practiced by those of higher status over subordinates, can themselves be employed as strategies of status raising.

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Muniyammāl and Karuttammāl are markers of status for others. But in order to more fully understand how tirusti prophylactics operate in this status- mediating fashion, we must understand the mechanics of tirusti prophylaxis and how it is understood to work. In particular, we must understand two features of the Tamil ‘evil eye’ belief complex. First, tirusti prophylactics are necessarily eye-catching and conspicuous (which, as we have just seen, makes their deployment fraught for individuals who are considered to be of lower status). This relates to the supernatural power of the first glance in Tamil conceptions of sight. Second, we must understand certain processes of reversal at work in the ‘evil eye’ belief complex—processes whereby the tirusti prophylactic comes to take on properties of the object which it protects. It is to these mechanics of the gaze that we now turn.

IV The first glance: Directing visual attention through

prophylactics

‘Evil eye’ repellent amulets have traditionally been designed to divert ‘evil eye’ from that which needs protection (be it a fair-skinned child, a new home or an expensive commodity such as a car) by attracting potentially harmful visual attention, first to the amulet itself, where it is thought to be neutralised, contained, confused or otherwise redirected. As ‘Chellappillai’, a 50-year-old art teacher from the Paraiyar community observed, the first glance of an onlooker is ‘rompa tēñcar’ (very dangerous). Because the initial gaze originating from the eye is considered to be the most powerful and the most potentially damaging, tirusti prophylactics are designed to be as eye catching or captivating (kavarcci) as possible. Consequently, reflective things such as mirrors (and even used CDs) are popular tirusti prophylactics. ‘Arumukacāmi’, a Paraiyar man in his mid-40s, said that the mirror is an ideal tirusti prophylactic because of its ability to literally ‘move the direc- tion of the eye’ (kan ticai tirupputal). Mirrors-as-prophylactics are common within temples, homes and even mini-buses, for their ability to divert and deflect tirusti as they redirect the gaze back towards the viewer.

As the ethnographic literature on ‘evil eye’ prophylactic amulets and rituals in South Asia attests (Crooke 1896: 1–82; DeCunha 1886; Dubois 1906 [1866]: 149–50, 228; Maloney 1976: 102–48; Thurston 1912: 109–20; Woodburne 1935), prophylactic amulets and markings are often understood to achieve their function of diverting the eye either by being

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aciṅkam (garishly ugly)—like the pūtam, or grimacing demon faces hung on shops and houses—or, in some cases, by being attractive—such as the alaṅkāram (decorations) like the black fringe (kuñcam) that hangs from autorickshaws, the tassels and bells that are placed on the horns of bullocks, or other forms of beautification such as beads and jewellery. Informants described these latter, more ‘beautiful’ forms of protection as diverting tirusti by ‘captivating’ or ‘confusing’ (mayaṅkutal) the viewer (cf. Gell’s description of kōlams as ‘cognitive teasing’, 1998: 85). Prophylactics that are judged to be aciṅkam include tirusti masks (known as tirusti mukam, tirusti pommai or pūtam) which feature garish demon heads with fangs, horns and bloodshot eyes, and are favoured protective amulets for the doorways of homes and businesses (see Photo 4). Tirusti pommai (effi- gies) and tirusti pūsanikkāy (pumpkins) often bear ghoulish faces. Ropes of braided human hair (kampili kayiru) wrapped around large lumps of alum (cīnikkāram) are also favourites for doorways and vehicles.

Photo 4 Common tirusti prophylactics. Madurai, India

Source: By author.

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Whether ‘ugly’ or ‘beautiful’, the first-order, supernatural function of the normative tirusti prophylactic is protection through distraction. The amulet attracts the initial gaze of the viewer towards the prophylactic (rather than towards the thing of value to which it is affixed) with the result that the viewer is disgusted, alarmed, bewitched or confused. The power of the initial gaze, the origin of the most damaging tirusti, is thereby contained or re-directed elsewhere.15

In addition to the use of amulets to divert the envious gaze, asym- metrical markings are also utilised in order to make something considered ‘beautiful’ (alaku) appear ‘ugly’ (aciṅkam). Often a blemish is applied to a freshly painted wall of a home in order to make it appear imperfect (and consequently less likely to be envied), and rebar may be left sticking out of a newly constructed home to make it appear unfinished. Young children are made to seem less attractive through the common application of smudges made with kajol (kan mai) or lampblack on the face, known as tirusti pottu (‘tirusti dot’). In these cases, we see that there is a principle of antinomy op- erative in the relationship between these tirusti prophylactics and the entities they protect.16 Filthiness, asymmetries and blemishes protect their opposites: those things which are considered pure, symmetrical or beautiful.

V Tirusti reversals

‘Evil eye’ protective amulets, because they are associated with things of value, may ironically become imbued with the qualities of that which

15 Tirusti is understood to have a kind of materiality which can be contained in non- desiccating items (such as pumpkins, aloe, coconuts and lemons) which are commonly used as prophylactic amulets and in binding rituals. On special occasions, a pumpkin containing burning camphor is used to perform āratti, to ‘bind’ (cuttutal) the tirusti that has accumulated on affected individuals and objects. After the pumpkin is saturated with tirusti, it is smashed in a three-point intersection (mūccanti) so as to effectively disperse the tirusti.

16 Forms of antinomy are particularly elaborated in the protection of children from tirusti. Prophylactic transvestism—dressing children in the clothing, hairstyle and jewellery of the opposite gender—is commonly employed both for boys and girls (Dean 2011). In addition to applying asymmetrical markings on children to throw off the gaze of others, parents may also use various abuse terms to achieve this affect. Mary Fuller (1965) documents cases of children being given names such as ‘crazy crooked one’, ‘rag’ and ‘rubbish’ and such children being left in various states of filth and disarray, not out of neglect but out of concern for protecting them from the ‘evil eye’. This custom is not as common these days but it is still possible to meet people in Tamil Nadu with such names as Kuppaicāmi or ‘God of trash.’

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they protect. ‘Ugly’ prophylactics, for instance, can undergo a process of aestheticisation and become more refined, more ‘beautiful’. Take, for example, the braids of matted human hair (kampili kayiru) which dangle from the front of vehicles like lorries and autorickshaws. These prophylactics, designed to be unsightly, appear to have given rise to the use of nylon black tassels (kuñcam), a case where the erstwhile ‘ugly’ prophylactic, through the result of a process of reversal, comes to take on completely opposite characteristics. Autorickshaw drivers would simulta- neously describe these tassels as items of ‘beautification’ or ‘decoration’ (alaṅkāram) as well as things which, like the hair ropes, were deployed ‘for tirusti’. It is possible that this same process of aestheticisation has taken place with other amulets that are considered decorative, such as the beads as prophylactic amulets that Crooke describes (1896: 19), the prophylactic gold ornament worn on the foreheads of brides as described by Dubois (1906[1866]: 228) and perhaps even with the bindi or pottu which is today considered by many to be merely ‘decorative’.

Another telling example of a tirusti prophylactic coming to take on the attributes of that which it protects is the tirusti pottu, the black smudge applied to the faces of children, meant to make them appear less attractive. It is clear that this asymmetrical marking has become re-analysed as a kind of beauty mark. Individuals undergoing rites of passage, particularly brides and young girls during coming-of-age functions, are considered to be particularly vulnerable to the envious gazes of onlookers. Women and girls will often have tirusti pottu applied to their faces during these functions, but they are generally much smaller and more stylised than those applied to the faces of young children (which look considerably messier in their application, and therein lies the difference). Revealingly, the tirusti pottu in this former case is often explained not just in terms of its function as a tirusti prophylactic marking, but in terms of its aesthetic qualities as a ‘beauty mark’ or alaku.

Matted braids of hair dangling from an autorickshaw or black smudges on a child’s face function as prophylactics precisely because they are ‘ugly’ or aciṅkam. But over time, because of their consistent association with objects and persons of value and beauty, these prophylactics become re-analysed as signs of that which they protect. At this point, they are explicitly re-fashioned as beautiful, their new design and deployment imbuing them with the aesthetic properties they are now understood as having. Through such a process of semiotic reversal, those prophylactics

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which had once been seen as unsightly and undesirable, come to take on the qualities of that which they protect; in the case of the tirusti pottu, they become re-analysed as beautiful.

The tirusti pottu qua beauty mark example shows how the ‘evil eye’ prophylactic can serve to resolve the dialectical tension between the need to protect oneself from tirusti, and the desire to signal one’s (enviable) status to others. Because people who are normatively judged as beautiful are thought to need protection, the prophylactics which afford protec- tion to such individuals become signs of the very beauty which they are deployed to distract the eyes from. Not only is the tirusti dot a sign of beauty, it takes on positive aesthetic qualities in and of itself. The ability of the prophylactic amulet to signal one’s social status involves a process of semiotic reversal similar in kind to that of the beauty mark. Just as the tirusti pottu comes to take on attributes of the aesthetically valued thing which it protects, thereby becoming a beauty mark, so too do prophy- lactic amulets take on the status-indexing attributes of those objects of value which they protect. In the case of the tirusti pottu, once it becomes a sign of beauty in and of itself, women are able to use it as a form of beautification. Following a similar pattern, tirusti prophylactic amulets are increasingly becoming things of value in their own right. Indeed, in the contemporary moment, the most effective tirusti amulets are themselves, ironically, conspicuously consumed commodities.

VI Prophylactics as commodities, commodities as

prophylactics

The use of the ‘evil eye’ prophylactic as a means to communicate status is not something that people are only tacitly aware of in daily social in- teraction. Because of the use of prophylactics to entail status and upward mobility, there is a wider societal awareness about the way in which tirusti prophylactic rituals and media can be understood and therefore, strategi- cally deployed, as signs of wealth and status. Indeed, it is this second- order, social function of the tirusti prophylactic as entailing status which is being foregrounded in the contemporary moment and one which is being capitalised upon in rather unique ways. In an apotheosis of the processes of semiotic reversal which I have been describing, the tirusti prophylactic not only comes to stand for things of value, it actually becomes a thing

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of value in its own right.17 Hence, in contemporary Tamil Nadu, luxury items costing thousands of rupees are being re-analysed and incorporated into the ‘evil eye’ belief complex as forms of tirusti prophylaxis. These prophylactics of the liberalised Tamil Nadu public sphere are hybrid forms, advertised and marketed for their ability to both repel inauspiciousness in the form of tirusti and to simultaneously attract auspiciousness in the form of the status-raising visual attention of others.

I was surprised when middle-class Madurai housewives indicated to me that they had installed tanks of ornamental fish—luxury items which are expensive to purchase and costly to maintain—in their living rooms ‘for tirusti’. There has been a boom across Tamil Nadu in the past few years in the sales of such ornamental fish which have become a very popular big ticket item for display in hotels, businesses and middle-class homes. These fish and the fancy tanks they come in have become so popular that one of the biggest exhibitions in the city of Madurai during 2007 was a fish expo put on as part of the Hindu Metroplus Lifestyle Show at the city’s Tamukkam ground. Before perusing an enormous tent filled with the latest washing machines and flat screen televisions, for an entrance fee of 20 rupees, middle-class families filed past dozens of tanks of multi- coloured fish at what was billed at the time as Tamil Nadu’s biggest ever ornamental fish show. An exhibit was set up outside the exhibition hall with signboards promoting the health and supernatural benefits of owning fish: ‘Mīnkalin acaivai pārkkum pōtu ārōkkiyam pirakkiratu!’ (‘Watching fish is good for the health!’) and ‘Mīn iruntāl, ketta sakti āntātu!’ (‘Where there are fish, bad energies will be repelled!’).

Fish tanks with colourful ornamental fish are not the only commodities marketed expressly for their benefits as tirusti and ‘bad energy’ deflectors. In the past few years, a highly priced fish from China, known as vāstu mīn,

17 The assimilation of the standing-for relationship (e.g., the tirusti pottu as standing for beauty) into a relation of essential identity (e.g., the beauty mark as an aesthetically valued form in and of itself) seems to be motivated, in part, by broader tendencies in Hindu visual culture. Hindu visual experiences of the sacred are not modelled on a relation between an authentic original and its ineffectual copies, a common understanding of ‘representation’ in Judeo- Christian thought (see Benjamin 1968 [1936]; Pinney 2002). Whereas, for example, Protestant representations of the sacred—most canonically with the sacraments of the Eucharist—are understood to stand for the sacred (rather than actually being the blood and body of Jesus), no such cleaving of the sign from its object is common in Hindu religious practice. Thus, as has long been recognised, representations of gods, from calendar art to sacred images in temples, are all considered capable of acting in an unmediated way upon devotees.

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has been selling out in ornamental fish stores across Tamil Nadu. Feng shui, or cīna vāstu (‘Chinese vāstu’), as it is called in Tamil, is booming in popularity in recent years, with numerous books being published on the topic in Tamil. The Tamil daily Dinathanti publishes a special section on cīna vāstu each week and Tamil weeklies extol the benefits of Chinese amulets in special issues on the topic. China, with its ancient civilisation, is increasingly imagined as a source for powerful amulets, its philosophy of Feng Shui being seen as analogous to the vāstu tradition of South Asia. The vāstu mīn, imported from China, regularly retails for thousands of rupees and was rumoured by some informants to cost as much as 100,000 rupees, depending on the fish. According to the ornamental fish salesmen whom I interviewed, if the vāstu mīn is installed properly (and prominently) in one’s home in the appropriate cardinal direction, one can be assured not only that tirusti will be repelled, but that the family will achieve greater wealth and prosperity. An issue of the Tamil daily Dinathanti featured the vāstu mīn and assured readers: ‘This fish is not mere show (jōrā irukkulla). If you keep this fish in your house, they say that prosperity (cupitcam) will flourish (talaikkumām). . . . This ‘vāstu mīn’ costs `5000’.18

How is it that a costly commodity, that which normatively is believed to elicit visual attention and the harmful tirusti that comes with it, could come to be seen as protecting against tirusti? The way that the term ‘tirusti’ is used in daily Tamil speech holds some important clues. Informants often referred to tirusti protective media (tirusti parikāram) simply as ‘tirusti’. The same word, tirusti, is used to refer both to the destructive consequences of visual attention as well as to those things which are deployed to ward it off. This semantic conflation reflects the ways in which prophylactics are understood to function. They work both by virtue of their conspicuous deployment (i.e., their ability to attract visual attention) and, in the case of the traditional prophylactic, their capacities to neutralise, capture or deflect harmful tirusti. The ability of the prophylactic to both attract and neutralise visual attention is what is being highlighted and exploited in the case of the commodity-as-prophylactic. The commodity is ‘for tirusti’ in that it attracts the eye and captures its affective investment. Under condi- tions of socio-economic mobility, the ability to attract the visual attention of others is becoming re-conceptualised as a positive thing, as evidence of having made it in the post-liberalisation era. In this context, luxury

18 ‘Visuval sāt’, Dinathanti, 7 October 2007.

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commodities—items which before had needed protection from the gaze, but which now are being showcased for it—are becoming re-analysed as tirusti prophylactics, allowing them to be conspicuously oriented towards the gazes of others while ostensibly neutralising any tirusti this attention might generate.

Clearly, it is not only the first-order, supernatural function of the normative tirusti prophylactic—that of neutralising tirusti—that is being capitalised upon here. It is also their ability to accrue kauravam to their proud owners. While prophylactic commodities are marketed not as mere status symbols, but rather for their supernatural abilities to neutralise negative energies and to attract auspiciousness (i.e., wealth), such costly prophylactics, which cost thousands of rupees to purchase and hundreds to maintain, are also very clearly status-mediating commodities. The ornamental fish tanks and vāstu mīn on display in middle-class Madurai living rooms are commodities which, like televisions, refrigerators and ‘showcases’ filled with trinkets (Dickey, this issue), serve as emblems of the socio-economic status of the family to which they belong. While the fish tank and the vāstu mīn draw visual attention just like traditional pro- phylactics, they not only serve to protect the owner’s property or person, but to simultaneously raise his or her status. The vāstu mīn is a tirusti prophylactic available only to the rich, a pricey commodity re-analysed as a tirusti repellent media. The classification of such commodities as pro- phylactics licenses individuals to conspicuously consume while masking such consumption as a form of protection from tirusti.

As Osella and Osella write, consumer goods are ‘limited in use as external indicators of wealth’ because they are ‘as often as not hidden within the house’ (2000: 139). The fish tank and the vāstu mīn, like other costly consumer goods such as electric grinders and flat-screen televi- sions, are indeed kept inside the home. But it is there that they are clearly visible to those whose opinion, and tirusti, is most powerful. It is one’s peers—extended family, close friends and neighbours—who have access to the inside of one’s home, particularly during special occasions when costly consumer goods are apt to become conversation pieces. Though situated within the confines of the house, the expensive consumables are nevertheless very much on display. A Paraiyar woman in her early 40s, ‘Vijaya’ was the only woman amongst her immediate neighbours who owned a refrigerator. She kept it unplugged, however, because the electric- ity that was required to run it was too expensive. The only time I saw this

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refrigerator being used was to store ‘cool drinks’ during her daughter’s coming-of-age function when dozens of extended family members were visiting from out of town. For many in A. Colony, a luxury good such as a refrigerator is considered to be a sign of prestige. It may—like the vāstu mīn and fish tanks of more wealthy families—be kept within the home, but it is far from invisible to one’s peers.

In contemporary Tamil Nadu, individuals are capitalising upon the second-order, symbolic function of ‘evil eye’ prophylactics to signal social status and accrue kauravam in the eyes of peers. The re-analysis of costly commodities increasingly, as ‘for tirusti’, is becoming a preferred means for resolving the dialectical tension between the desire to communicate status and the fear that attracting the attention of others will elicit harmful tirusti. Previously we saw a semiotic reversal in which the prophylactic sign, like the ‘ugly’ amulet, comes to take on the attributes of that which it protects. The ugly amulet becomes a beautiful decoration or artistic flourish (e.g. the ‘hair rope’ [kampili kayiru] becomes a decorative tassel [kuñcam]). In contemporary Tamil Nadu, it is not only the prophylactic sign which is taking on the attributes of the object which it protects. In a similar fashion, the conspicuously consumed object is taking on the attributes of the prophylactic. With the fish tank and vāstu mīn, the commodity is being reoriented ‘towards’ the gaze, not hidden from it. In the modern moment, where the visual attention of others is actively solicited, the gazes of oth- ers are being drawn directly, and in an unmediated fashion, towards the commodity-prophylactic capable of directly indexing the owner’s status and prestige.

VII Advertising envy: Capitalising on tirusti

An advertisement, like the traditional ‘evil eye’ prophylactic, serves to mediate the relationship between viewers and objects of value. However, advertising—one of the most ubiquitous genres of visual representation in the West—functions in a nearly inverse manner to the tirusti prophylactic amulet. A tirusti prophylactic is normatively deployed in order to deflect visual attention—and the ‘desire’ (ācai) or ‘envy’ (porāmai) that may ac- company it—away from a co-present object or person that needs protection. Advertisements, on the other hand, are typically designed to bring viewers into a direct transactional relation with the often non-co-present object of

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representation—the commodity. The advertisement actively seeks to chan- nel the viewer’s attention and desire towards the commodity. It is perhaps revealing to note that ‘evil eye’ prophylaxis in tropes of envy elicitation is now being used in advertisements, particularly as tirusti prophylactics—eye- catching by design—are being increasingly utilised in order to draw visual attention towards, and not away from, status-mediating objects of value.

In India, even the most seemingly secular of economic activities— engaging in acts of conspicuous consumption—has often been thought of as having moral implications. In the years following India’s Independence, individual profligacy and extravagance were thought unseemly and anti- thetical to Gandhian principles (Varma 1998). But as the ability to elicit envy in others through the display of wealth is increasingly coming to be taken as a measure of personal success, Indian companies have begun to take advantage of this reality in order to sell products. In the 1980s, the Indian electronics company Onida developed the ‘Onida devil’ as part of an advertising campaign to sell televisions. The devil, dressed in green rags, made the sales pitch ‘neighbour’s envy, owner’s pride’. At that time, televisions were still a luxury for many people in India and though the campaign was controversial, it was hugely successful in selling televi- sions. By 1998, however, Onida abandoned the devil because ‘envy’ was no longer a successful selling point for televisions, given their ubiquity.

In 2004, Onida reintroduced the devil, this time more suave in man- ner and dressed in a sleek suit, seemingly to appeal to a more urbane customer who is perhaps more concerned with style and aesthetics in his or her appliances. The devil’s appearance had changed, but envy elicita- tion as a marketing strategy still proved to be highly effective for Onida, particularly in the context of globalisation and economic liberalisation where ensuring name recognition of brands, both foreign and domestic, is a major factor in successful advertising campaigns.

The use not only of envy but of tirusti itself in advertising campaigns has proven effective in Tamil Nadu. An advertisement for Maharaja Silk House of Thanjavur uses the clothing’s ability to elicit the tirusti of family members as a sales gimmick. According to the ad: ‘All your relatives will be so enchanted [by your clothing] that you’ll have to ward off the ‘evil eye’ (‘contam ellām cokkip pōkum kanpatumenru cuttip pōtum’). Just as with the Onida campaign, we see here that one’s peers—in this case, ex- tended family members—are the individuals to whom the act of (enviable) consumption is ideally directed. In 2007, Milan—an upscale clothing store

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in downtown Madurai—launched their ‘Dhristi Collection’, a collection of clothing inspired by tirusti. According to the Milan store owner Lalji Vora and the salespersons at his store, ‘Dhristi Collection’ saris, elaborately designed and brightly coloured with extensive beading and sequin work, were meant to be so attractive that they would necessarily attract tirusti, thereby necessitating the use of prophylactics such as tirusti pūsanikkāy and tirusti pommai in order to repel the envious glances of admirers.

Models for Milan’s Dhristi Collection campaign were featured wearing items from the ‘Dhristi Collection’ and holding various tirusti prophy- lactics. One model, wearing a sari, is seated holding a tirusti pumpkin in her lap (see Photo 5); another model wearing a salwar kameez, holds a tirusti pūtam (demon face) as if it were a purse (see Photo 6). Designs

Photo 5 Advertisement for upscale Madurai clothing store Milan’s ‘Dhristi Collection’ of saris

Source: By author.

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for the saris and salwar kameez—which were among the most expensive in the store, starting around 1,000 rupees—are reminiscent of tirusti pottu, those black marks used to divert tirusti which are made on tirusti pūsanikkāy as well as the faces of children and adults (compare salwar designs with that of pumpkins in Photo 6). In this instance, the commod- ity itself begins to look like a tirusti prophylactic; the design of the item of clothing capitalises on the ability of the prophylactic to draw visual attention towards itself and hence towards the commodity.

Photo 6 A woman (left), holding a pūtam (prophylactic ‘demon’ head), models a salwar kameez

from the Milan store’s ‘Dhristi Collection’

Source: By author.

Mr. Vora indicated that the campaign was highly successful in Madurai due to the fact that tirusti motifs have such resonance in and around the city. Loyal customers of the Milan store even gave Mr. Vora gifts of tirusti pumpkins in order to protect his shop. The success of this clever advertising campaign represents a shift in the mind of the viewing public; whereas envy in the past may have been something to be avoided, now—just like with the Onida ‘neighbour’s envy, owner’s pride’ campaign—envy is something to be desired and solicited through one’s acts of consumption.

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VIII Distinction, taste and the move to auspiciousness

Because tirusti practices so often become a site for the negotiation of social status, it is perhaps not surprising to find canons of distinction and taste at work in the selection and proper deployment of the newest forms of tirusti prophylaxis. ‘Evil eye’ prophylactic media have become yet another site where fashions and trends emerge. The selection of what kind of prophylactic to use reflects distinctions of status-mediating taste. Ceramic tirusti tiles in a plethora of designs now replace the tirusti pumpkin or the demon face, and are increasingly incorporated within architectural flourishes on some of the newest and grandest Madurai bungalows. A man in his mid-30s who owned a tile shop, specialising in a variety of tirusti tiles, indicated that they were ‘nice’ (an English borrowing, like the term ‘decent’, which is frequently used by Tamils to describe something that is tasteful) when compared with more traditional prophylactic forms. Today, individuals keen on elevating their kauravam are distancing themselves from traditional prophylactics, many of which function by virtue of being aciṅkam. Such traditional amulets are considered less desirable by the upwardly mobile and labelled pejoratively as artefacts of mūtanampikkai (‘superstition’).

Concerns about whether or not a given type of prophylaxis is ‘decent’ extend beyond the aesthetic. For elites and other upwardly mobile indi- viduals, it is not enough to simply protect oneself from the inauspicious; one must always be actively accruing auspiciousness. Increasingly, those forms of protection which function by attracting auspiciousness, espe- cially in the form of material wealth, are positively evaluated as ‘decent’. In a 2004 Hindu editorial (featured under the heading ‘Realityspeak’), writer D. Murali laments the use of ‘frightening’ media such as ‘scarily- painted pumpkins and demon face’, and encourages a turn to ‘less scary’ media such as the ‘eight lucky signs’ of Tibetan Buddhism.19 Importantly, the author advocates for such a shift towards the auspicious (rather than the terrifying), not only because such symbols are less unsightly, but because they can also help to ensure such things as ‘limitless material wealth’.

19 D. Murali, ‘Fighting Evil and Frightening Visitors’, The Hindu: Property Plus-Chennai, 18 September 2004.

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As they eschew traditional prophylactics, upwardly mobile Tamils are increasingly turning towards exotic ritual practices available only to the few. In particular, Feng Shui and apotropaic amulets from China are becoming increasingly popular. Unlike the tirusti pumpkins and tirusti pommai painted with demon faces, which are designed to repel inauspi- ciousness, these new amulets of the liberalised Tamil Nadu public sphere are marketed for their ability to attract auspiciousness. Cīna vāstu or Feng Shui amulets are extolled for their ability to ensure wealth and are con- sidered ‘tasteful’. Feng Shui ‘experts’ are increasingly sought out in the Tamil media for their knowledge of auspicious prophylactics from China, and Hindu temples and bookstores regularly stock books on cīna vāstu. The Chinese Buddha is now regularly sold alongside pūjā implements in temple shops. Seeing a representation of someone with a large belly is considered auspicious, and now the Chinese Laughing Buddha (cirikkum puttar) is considered a popular alternative to the Chettiyar Pommai which was traditionally deployed in shops and on homes, both to deflect the ‘evil eye’ and assure prosperity. According to one expert, any Laughing Buddha is considered auspicious for the home, but the Buddha which holds a ‘sack of money’ (‘pana mūttai’) guarantees the greatest promise of ‘wealth’ (‘aisvaryam’) and ‘offers the greatest good fortune’ by virtue of its ‘good energies’ (‘naṅku sakti’) (Muralītaran 2003: 139).

As decidedly modern concerns about taste and distinction with respect to ‘evil eye’ prophylaxis become more prominent, we find a growing shift away from a concern to deflect inauspiciousness, in the form of tirusti, towards the deploying of media that are believed to attract auspiciousness in the form of material wealth. This move, in some quarters, towards the use of auspiciousness-accruing amulets dovetails with the re-conceptu- alisation of visual attention as being desirable and status-raising rather than dangerous.

IX Conclusion

In this article, I have demonstrated the dynamic interaction between the supernatural (first-order) and social (second-order) functions of tirusti prophylactics. At a first-order level, tirusti prophylactics—themselves eye-catching by design—protect objects and persons from the potentially deleterious effects of the visual attention of others. But because they are

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often deployed to protect kauravam or status-accruing things of value, tirusti prophylactics can also, at a second-order level, be taken as signs of status and prestige. As we saw with the tirusti dot, because of this close association, tirusti prophylactics—through a process of semiotic reversal— often come to take on attributes of the things of value they protect. Not only do ‘ugly’ prophylactics undergo a process of aestheticisation by which they are re-conceptualised as ‘beautiful’, they may also undergo a process of value inflation, becoming costly things of value in their own right. The re-analysis of commodities as tirusti amulets represents a synthesis in the dialectical tension between the need to accrue kauravam through the visible display of material wealth and the fear that attracting such visual attention will result in destructive tirusti. People who fear tirusti are able to conspicuously consume inasmuch as the objects of their consumption are simultaneously understood as tirusti prophylactics.

In the modern socio-economic order where people are ever more anxious about raising their social standing relative to their peers and neighbours, the second-order, social function of tirusti prophylactics as signs of status has become foregrounded. The ‘traditional’ ‘evil eye’ prophylactic was deployed in order to ward off tirusti attack, a highly inauspicious event which itself could result in the loss of social standing. Under conditions of upward mo- bility, there is a greater concern with utilising amulets that facilitate profit and increase. Contemporary amulets achieve this by attracting and accruing auspiciousness—what we might think of as the analogue of financial or mon- etary interest for symbolic capital. The ‘evil eye’ amulets of the liberalised Tamil Nadu public sphere are not only expensive commodities with a purely status-raising social function available to a select few; they are also marketed for their supernatural ability to attract greater material wealth for those who deploy them. The commodity-prophylactic, in particular, capitalises on the eye-catching design of the traditional ‘evil eye’ prophylactic, drawing the visual attention of others and converting it into symbolic capital. Because drawing the visual attention and concomitant envy of others through one’s displays of wealth is now considered positively status raising, the act of looking itself comes to be re-analysed as auspicious.

Whereas within the Hindu caste system displays of wealth and the deployment of status symbols were strictly policed, under conditions of modernity and economic liberalisation, such signs are understood as being capable of improving one’s social status and standing. Rather than being hidden from view, showcased objects of material wealth—from display

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cases to televisions to fish tanks—draw the attention of the viewer, just like the prophylactic media that are deployed to protect such objects from tirusti. This similarity in catching the eye—conceptualised more on analogy to darśan, as a form of auspicious looking than as an instance of inauspicious tirusti—leads people to re-conceptualise prophylactic- commodities as ‘for tirusti’. In this manner, the ‘evil eye’ belief complex affords a new idiom for negotiating acts of conspicuous consumption in the contemporary context where the possibility of social mobility through acts of consumption and the display of wealth is real.

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