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some migrants had started chitties, but due to defaulting by members thishad collapsed.The major items of expenditure in this area were the life-cycle rituals andfestivals that constitute an important part of the social and religious life ofa Hindu community. Conventionally, when a lower caste became affluentor powerful, a process of caste mobility was initiated whereby the style oflife, customs, and rituals of a higher caste were adopted. Generally suchchanges were followed by a claim to a higher position in the caste hierarchy.This process has been called Sanskritization (Srinivas 1968).While theEzhavas of Cherur had adopted new occupations as well as new ritualsand ceremonies, I have argued elsewhere that these did not conform to thetypical Sanskritization pattern since they were not the ones practiced by theupper castes of the area (Kurien 2002). What is of relevance in the contextof their economic behavior, however, is the fact that life-cycle ceremonieshad been elaborated, and several new rites of gift-giving (largely of gold)had been introduced. The ceremonies were also conducted on a far morelavish scale than earlier. Marriages were the biggest of such celebrationsand migrants spent a good proportion of their Gulf money on the weddingsof their sisters, daughters, and close relatives. Life-cycle ceremonies andfestivals were also occasions when the members of the community wereexpected to give fairly substantial gifts. Thus, Gulf money had created acircle of reciprocity and redistribution within the community in Cherur,though this was much smaller than in Veni.Education was another major item of expenditure. Although the state asa whole had traditionally placed a lot of emphasis on education, as lowcastes the Ezhavas had not been allowed to attend government schools andcolleges in the earlier period. Investing in education was therefore anothermeans that the Ezhavas used to achieve a change in status. Many of thechildren were sent to the relatively expensive English medium schools,and money was also spent on various coaching classes to make sure thechildren obtained good results.There were very few shops in the area and most villagers took the bus to thenearest town (around six miles away) to do their shopping, but there wasstill very little investment of the money in local business. The few peoplewho tried wound up with big losses. The villagers implied that this was dueto the lack of a business tradition and culture, and the competitive nature ofthe community which did not support local entrepreneurial activity. 662036I was told that many people preferred to go to the town for their purchases rather than give theirbusiness to a fellow villager. They also felt that the goods sold locally were inferior to and more