Mettur recently was the scene of both joy and shame: Joy when its dams almost overflowed and shame when it rained chappals and rotten foodstuff. Indeed, the self-styled champions of Tamil women and culture, by their brazen behavior and uncouth rhetoric, have pushed things to such depths that all are left wondering what really is Tamil culture! Sure, it certainly is not what actress Khushboo claimed about women, but then does it allow throwing eggs and tomatoes at women? Really, it is the agitators who have egg on their faces!
Khushboo’s flippant and indiscreet comments were better ignored but, thanks to some rabid elements and a sensation-happy media, the issue has become a raging debate with even the courts being seized of the matter. Pre-marital flings and safe sex are currently sub judice and men of law have now been entrusted with the supremely vital job of setting some groundrules for marital conduct and bedroom behaviour. Indeed it is unnerving to note that, amidst the mounting backlog of cases that involve the bread and butter of thousands and burning national issues, some have thought it fit to engage the judiciary with such frivolous stuff that should ideally be confined to steamy journals. Probably, they think the country cannot move forward or a constitutional crisis would set in unless the case of Khushboo Vs The State, er.., Women of TN is settled!
I do not think either Khushboo or Suhasini have changed their views, yet they apologised, probably because it was better to let such a worthless matter rest and in any case, there was no point in talking to mobs armed with brooms. But these guardian-gangs have to be unapolegitically updated on some history as well as current happenings so that they can sharpen their brains, brawn and brooms too, a little more to take on a few other antagonists of Tamil women.
For starters, why not these people read their own mentor, Periyar’s expositions on women and chastity? (Tuqlaq magazine carried a few of those unquotable quotes). Forget Tamil culture, Periyar says women should not be bound by any culture whatsoever and goes on to add that chastity is the worst thing that happened to women! His pearls of wisdom on marriage, pregnancy etc and his version of women’s emancipation is sure to make Khushboo’s utterances seem like a sermon. In fact, his entire works, which we at Talk had the misfortune of reading in detail, overflows with contempt for all those tenets that the current champions define as Tamil culture. But, thankfully, we did not find any mention of rotten eggs and tomatoes, though there was a generous sprinkling of vengayam in his speeches. Of course, it is now too late to issue court notices and summons on him, but Periyar’s political progeny at least have to clear the air on the views of the ultimate rationalist. For, by their rational logic, if it is brooms for Khushboo, then for Periyaar …well, let us not give them any more ideas.
The literature, if you can call it that, of the Dravidian movement that Periyar unleashed on an unsuspecting TN, is littered with such similar piffle. The movies penned by many of its super script writers are full of kinked storylines, suggestive innuendos and vulgarities that bring no credit or solace to any woman, let alone Tamil women. Illicit relationships and adultery are not just romanticised but even advocated as progressive. Even the occasional celebration of chastity has an undercurrent of lewdness that starkly reveals the writer’s bent of mind. In all, Tamil culture, particularly vis a vis women, is certainly not a highpoint of both Dravidian politics and its ‘literature’.
Cutting to the present, the broom-wielders can also bestow their attention on some of the TV serials that routinely, rather predominantly, depict women as primary villains. Are all Tamil women trying to poison their mothers-in- law or vice-versa, bomb out intrusive sisters-in-law or plotting to usurp properties? The extent of domestic violence with women as chief protagonists in these serials is scary, to say the least.
The maturity and quality of a society is determined by the way it handles dissent and treats dissenters. Already, TN has attained some kind of notoriety in this regard what with its stifling and intolerant political and social atmosphere. The paragons of self-respect and rationalism should also realise that these are not their patents alone, but also apply to their ideological opponents or those who differ with them. If they continue to browbeat, or should I say, broom-beat dissent, the people may choose to use a more potent broom, namely, the ballot, to clean the State of such junk!