“Envy is in the (evil) eye of the beholder: Conspicuous consumption in South Indian visual culture”

Presentation by
Melanie Dean
Department of South Asia Studies

Friday, April 3
12-2pm
816 Williams Hall

Pumpkins with black dots, papier-mâché demon masks, photographs of lucky donkeys, tiles bearing kan drishti ganapati (evil eye Ganesha), effigies with earthen pots for heads, aloe, lemons, and chilies are ubiquitous in the doorways of homes and businesses across the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.  Such conspicuously placed media are believed to repel the evil eye, or kan drishti as it is often called in Tamil, and are deployed in order to protect both person and property from the deleterious effects of the envious gazes of others. In this paper I explore the ways in which the belief in kan drishti, a salient feature of Tamil visual culture, is mediating the contemporary visibility of class and consumption in the city of Madurai, Tamil Nadu. In particular, my paper considers how Tamil understandings of the gaze and configurations of space intersect to condition how commodities are (or are not) displayed, consumed, and viewed by urban south Indians.  I also examine the reasons why, in a Madurai colony of Dalits and Thevars, upwardly mobile residents often consider the symbolic value and high status afforded by certain commodities – from gold jewelry to refrigerators – to outweigh concerns about the deleterious effects of the evil eye.