To say that this is an intro-spection would be a blatant lie; writers as a rule rarely indulge in that exercise, for if they did many would not be writing. All their fingers only point outward; self-scrutiny is a sin against … self! One can therefore consider this a confession conveyed in one of those weaker moments when one’s thought is constipated by the absence of ideas as well as agent provocateurs.
Browsing: COLUMNS
It is not often that you have ghosts of past Mughal emperors calling on you in succession. After Babar, who has been hanging around for quite some time now, sternly refusing to be exorcised, Akbar and Aurangazeb are currently in our midst, bestowing their munificence even posthumously.
Just a little over sixty days into the new year and TN has already seen quite a number of festivals. Now, I am not talking of the ones like Pongal (the new new year day from the next new year) or Sivarathri, which are about traditions or Gods. Rather I am referring to the many ‘political festivals’ that come one after another and are all set to outnumber the real festivals in due course.
It’s just no longer cricket. At least, not as we know it. Barring the bat, ball and stumps, not many of the essential symbols of the hoary game would survive the onslaught of the market forces. The ascendency of the fifty-over version of the game as a money-spinner had already relegated the all-white slow motion Test cricket to secondary status.
For all his racist inclinations, the white man would still want his coffee black. The Indian fancy for anything fair too comes with exceptions wherein white is taboo: Black hair is deemed the sole measure of youth. And then black money is the toast of the nation’s citizens, rajas & prajas alike.
Roman emperor Claudius, who believed that married men made for bad soldiers, passed a law prohibiting the youth of his land from entering wedlock. And enter, St Valentine; the priest presto went on a marriage spree, arranging clandestine weddings for love-lorn couples. He was arrested soon enough and put to death, but he lives on as a martyr for romance.
For us, Tamilians, C/o Dravidanadu-that-was-not, Maharashtra is as much north as say, UP, Bihar or Rajasthan, the Vindhyas and Hindi acting as the physical and mental LoCs respectively. But thanks to Raj of Thackeray clan, we now stand enlightened on the great reality that for every north there is a higher north looking down: the ‘north Indians’ from UP and Bihar are now the object of ire for the Mumbai mobs of Raj for having stolen the livelihood of the latter.
Gandhi’s son Harilal was a tor mented soul addicted to a most ungandhian lifestyle, to put in decent terms. The father of the nation was no great parent in his son’s scheme of things. If that be the decree of the biological offspring, how does the country judge its father, to whose political genes and genius, much of its character is attributed?
I forget the name of the company but I am sure it starts with an ‘A’ and used to appear somewhere at the top of the B-group listings in the share columns of newspapers. It was a computer firm that promised great things, though in 1999 the only thing it had on offer were its shares.