180: pariah Jun 6, 2015

At some point, most of us have probably felt like a pariah, none more than the Hindu caste, the untouchables. 'Pariah' is a Tamil word, which comes from the plural noun 'paṛaiyar', (the singular of which is paṛaiyan') meaning ‘(hereditary) drummer’. 'Paṛaiyar' derives from 'paṛai' which is ‘a drum’. This may not seem to makes sense with our definition of a pariah, but the reason is that these untouchables, these pariahs, were not allowed to join in with religious drumming processions.