CHENNAI: Are you someone who had to wake up extra early every morning to do the compulsory sandhyavandhanam? Or did you dread lunch breaks because your tiffin box options varied from thachimammu (curd rice) with the previous day’s sambar or thachimammu with mango pickle? If yes, you will most definitely be able to relate to Tambrahm Rage, a comic strip website that has been making its rounds on the internet for quite some time now.Tambrahm Rage began when Chennai-based blogger and IT consultant Krish Ashok, along with his friends and brothers, realised that there was quite a lot of shared experience in terms of how Tamil Brahmin households work.“They were alike in remarkably homogenous ways and I wanted to start an internet meme to capture them.I chose pictures over words because pictures tend to be processed by a more tolerant and open minded part of the brain,” he says.One lives the life of a teenager in a Tambrahm home through these comics, understanding the obsession over saving used plastic wrappers for future emergencies, the pressure of having to score nothing but a centum in math exams, having nothing to drink but rasna on hot summer afternoons, not being able to eat mushrooms ever because the ‘fother’ (Brahmin for father!) likes to think of them as ‘dog umbrellas’.As you scroll through the website, giggling uncontrollably throughout, you will notice the incredible amount of detailing that each strip contains. This is when you might begin to wonder as to how much reality there is to the comics.“They are based on my personal experiences. I believe all the rage comics there, are personal experiences which most people can relate to,” states Narasimhan G, a software engineer, who has also contributed strips to the website.Tambrahm Rage not only provides a reason for Tamil Brahmins world over to laugh at inside jokes, but it has also been an inspiration to many other such rage comic portals. The Gult Rage, started by Jayanth Tadinada, an IIT student, takes digs at the Teluguspeaking community, the Amit Rage at experiences of North Indians who have moved down South, among many others. “Tambrahm Rage brought the rage meme to India in a big way.Gult rage can be considered an offshoot of Tambrahm Rage as far as the format is concerned. Both the rage comics have a large number of common readers as well, which helps. But the similarity pretty much ends there. As far as ideas are concerned, everyone is on their own,” says Jayanth.With the strips revolving so closely around such sensitive issues, the chances that Krish and other illustrators receive hate mail are high. Krish was smart in thinking ahead. “I recruited my mother, who is orthodox but still open minded enough to laugh at these, to review each of the strips and see if any are potentially offensive,” he explains.Tambrahm Rage is definitely not the first of its kind. Four-pane rage comics got popular through 4chan, an image board website, in 2008. The main theme of such comics revolves around the characters expressing frustration or disappointment in a given situation, which usually has to do with a particular cultural quirk or community- based topics.So, the next time you want to relive some of your childhood memories at a Tamil Brahmin home, you can contribute to Tambrahm Rage. It is also known to be a great place to vent, the frustration brilliantly converting into creative energy, we’ve heard.Our personal favourites are Contents of the Fridge and The Incredible Sin and Communicable Disease of The Haircut. The Tambrahm version of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding invitation is a riot!
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