A Bengaluru-based CEO has slammed online chatter linking former Astronomer CEO and HR chief's "scandalous" moment at a Coldplay concert to "Brahmins". Anuradha Tiwari, who previously took pride in her "Brahmin genes", has called the link "bizzare".
"That Coldplay concert controversy has bizarrely been linked to Brahmins. What a joke!"
"Didn't even know 'Boston Brahmins' was a real term until I watched this video," she added.
That Coldplay concert controversy has bizarrely been linked to Brahmins. What a joke!
— Anuradha Tiwari (@talk2anuradha) July 22, 2025
Didn't even know ‘Boston Brahmins' was a real term until I watched this video.
What do you all think? pic.twitter.com/AonGnOlIaZ
The viral concert clip shows Kristin Cabot, the Chief People Officer of US-based software company Astronomer, with the company's former CEO, Andy Byron. They were both married to other people.
Ms Tiwari's comment came in response to internet sleuths discovering that Ms Cabot was married to Andrew Cabot, is a sixth-generation heir to the Privateer Rum fortune and a direct descendant of Andrew Cabot, one of the earliest members of the so-called "Boston Brahmin" elite.
Ms Tiwari's post soon went viral.
"What next? BBC? British Brahmin Corporation?" a user mocked.
Someone commented, "Boston Brahmins were the wealthiest and most influential Americans in New England. The Rockefellers, etc were all Boston Brahmins. So called because they were the direct descendants of the first English settlers."
A user wrote, "I guess I missed the part where he blamed the Brahmins."
The Cabot family is widely regarded as one of New England's most elite old-money dynasties. Their influence, along with that of the Lowells, Peabodys, and other elite families, shaped Boston's financial and cultural institutions for generations. A local saying goes, "The Lowells talk only to Cabots, and the Cabots talk only to God."
Who are Boston Brahmins?
Oliver Wendell Holmes coined the term in his 1861 novel Elsie Venner, calling Boston's elite families "the Brahmin Caste of New England", according to a PBS report. Brahmins are the highest priestly caste in India, and Mr Holmes borrowed the term to describe Boston's upper-class, Anglo-Saxon Protestant families, which has stuck since then.
The Boston Brahmins were the descendants of Puritans, having made their fortune as American merchants. They were the closest thing the United States has ever had to a true aristocracy.
In India, the word "Brahmin" carries a very different sociopolitical meaning, often tied to debates over caste privilege, reservation policies, and social justice.
Last year, Ms Tiwari, posted a photo writing, "Brahmin genes."
In follow-up posts, she argued that being proud of being a Brahmin identity was no different from claiming pride in being Dalit, Muslim, or tribal. "A mere mention of word 'Brahmin' triggered many inferior beings. Tells a lot about who real casteists are. UCs (upper class) get nothing from the system - no reservation, no freebies. We earn everything on our own and have every right to be proud of our lineage. So, deal with it," she wrote.
She added, "There is an entire system working to make Brahmins feel guilty for their very existence."
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