But in the jet age, few have the time, or the inclination, to wait that long, and the venerable othikkans (priestly conductors of rituals) of Malappuram have cashed in on the urgency.

The going rate is Rs 250, for all those who want to become full-fledged Nambudiris (or Antharjanams, as women Nambudiris are called) in one hour flat.

Curiously, women seem more eager to attain instant Brahminism this way. No less than a dozen of them went in for the conversion over the year. Men have so far stayed away from the option.

The ceremony is conducted just before the woman's marriage with Nambudiri youths. The conductors are Othikkans from the Travancore and Malabar areas.

The Numbudiri status, however, holds no pecuniary attraction. Most Nambudiris have been left landlessfollowing the Land Reforms Bill brought in by the late Marxist Chief Minister E M S Nambudiripad in 1967, and enjoy no Government freebies either.

The `overnight transformation' seems to have caused no problems of adaptation to the women opting for it. ``It is good fun to live through the customs and traditions of the Nambudiris,'' says Geetha (not her real name), who hails from a backward class family and sought conversion to Antharjanam after she fell in love with a Nambudiri she subsequently married.

Geetha was born and bought up in Delhi and is employed in a bank there, where she met her prospective husband Kesavan. They married at the bridegroom's residence recently. None of the relatives on either side boycotted the ceremony. ``She showed her desire to convert to an Antharjanam, and my family was only too happy to accept that,'' says Kesavan.

The latest case was reported from a Mana (Nambudiri joint family) in Ayinippally near Cherpu in Thrissur district.

Anoop, a chartered accountant, married aNair girl, who was converted to an Antharjanam. She has been accepted as a member of the Nambudiri family now.

Narayana Mangalath Narayanan Nambudiri, the othikkan who has conducted many such rituals, maintained that the practice was on par with the Paliyam Declaration pronounced by prominent Hindu religious scholars in 1987.

Those who participated in the declaration ceremony included Sangh Parivar leaders like P Madhavan, Kummanam Rajasekharan, P Kerala Varma Raja and Vedic scholars Cherumukku Vallabhan Somayajipad, Panthal Damodaran Nambudiri, Kaimukku Jathavedan Nambudiri and Pullamvazhi Devanarayanan Nambudiri.

The declaration was said to be the fallout of a very practical need: there were more temples than Nambudiris, who traditionally conduct the poojas. The idea was to have non-Brahmins share the tasks, the rationale being that anybody could become a Brahmin by deed.

Dissident and purist Vedic pundits sneer at the declaration as a contrived handiwork of the Bharatiya Janata Party and say thatnowhere is it mentioned that women from other communities could be converted to Antharjanams.

``The othikkans who conduct such ceremonies do it under the cover of the Paliyam Declaration. They simply want to help themselves to the dakshina for it,'' alleges Thaikkad Neelakandan Nambudiri of Vattamkulam in Palakkad district, considered to be a venerable Vaidikan (Vedic scholar).

Many Nambudiris say the floodgates were opened after Sreelatha, a filmstar, got herself converted to an Antharjanam, after she married Dr Kalady Parameswaran Nambudiri some time back.

``She was forced to become an Antharjanam, as she wanted her son to live as a Nambudiri,'' explains Edavana Madhavan Nambudiri. There was, in fact, a debate among the othikkans on how to conduct the upanayanam (thread ceremony that entitles a boy to become a full-fledged Nambudiri) of her son, as she was a non-Brahmin. The consensus was to make her an Antharjanam first, so that her son qualified for upanayanam.

The process of conversion requires alot of mantras to be chanted, says Erkara Narayanan Nambudiri, who has also been conducting such ceremonies. ``Usually, we consider the woman as adopted before we start the event, as there is no provision for converting a non-Brahmin female to an Antharjanam in any of the Puranas,'' he explains.

To begin with, the `adopted child' is made to undergo the mandatory birth rituals, followed by the shodasa kriyas (16 ceremonial offerings).