In tune with TN’s tested tradition I turn to tinsel town this week too. 12 B, as all true Tamilians groomed in pristine celluloid culture know, is a movie on alternate realities with twin plots.
Browsing: POINTBLANK
The familiar formula is back in fashion. Not that it ever was off vogue, but poll time is when it bares its fangs and rears its venom-spewing head most. Casteism, particularly in TN, is a generational curse. However, while displaying its ugliest face this week it also unmasked all the political facades that kept the poisonous pot boiling for their own survival and success.
Henceforth let’s also address him as Captain in sync with this sinking State’s fetish for titles.
Ignoring such ‘hard-earned’ prefixes and suffixes is akin to political blasphemy here. The leaders love them, coteries spread them, the cadres get inspired by them and the media, as ‘true’ mirrors of society, reflect them. That’s how legends are made in this part of the country.
This game has restarted even before the election whistle was sounded. But in contrast to what the title suggests, this is rarely played in that idyllic and aptly tear-shaped island, but in TN, a bomb’s throw or gunshot hearing distance away. A parallel arena is Indian judiciary.
The activists who called for the break-up of India and glorified terrorist Afzal Guru lay claim to a different idea of nationhood. Indeed we are curious!
Of all activisms, Left activism is the most pointless. Every other agitation may have some purpose or rationale, but the Red flag has never heralded anything of worth. Even the changes or ‘revolutions’ credited to it in various countries have eventually collapsed or ended in chaos. Communism itself comes with a commitment to combust and wither away.
St Valentine’s caricatured face can’t be even remotely related to romance. The legend is even hazy, but it has stuck and even spread to these parts. But I am invoking him now only as a metaphor of the times, just in case some sena misunderstands me. Ink on my facade would spoil my chances on Feb 14!
Nothing brings alive an opposition Indian politico as a corpse does. Though any dead person can be resurrected for political points, those from minorities or depressed classes top the charts as ripe for picking. Our secular and social milieu ordains thus.
Fortune magazine in an article entitled ‘The Last BRIC standing’ has this to say: Under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi, India is doing what its once-celebrated cohorts in the emerging-markets bloc can no longer seem to do: emerge.