Lame-rick on TN politics

Now cooking in TN politics, a slow burning thriller

Long dead the leader, who was the state's pillar

Along came an amiable person,

That may stand the test of reason

Alas, it turns out, he may be only a filler.

Excuse this indulgence; I promise I won't do this often. 

You're welcome. 

RIP Nirmal Shekar

I'm shocked that Nirmal Shekar is no more. With his passing, a part of the sports experience has been blown out.

Blessed with the talents to bring a match back to life and etch it deeper in one's memory for the ages, Nirmal held court the day after the curtains came down on a grand slam event; his prose just as smooth as a Federer backhand and as moving as an Arantxa win.  

Grass - Federer
Clay - Nadal
Turf - Djokovic
Paper - Nirmal Shekar

Adios Nirmal. 

Jallikkattu protests - My observations Part II

Yes, I have been surfing the news rather actively and here are some more observations in no particular order.

Short name Suppi Sir...

The protests are for ensuring respect to Tamil sentiments. But ironically, almost all of the protesters find themselves unable to frame a complete sentence in even reasonably good Tamil. Even allowing for camera nervousness and being in an emotionally agitated state, the health of spoken Tamil today in Tamilnadu needs some immediate care. And sadly this includes most of the press folks covering this. Tamil identity begins with speaking the language properly.

Saved by the bull

The Mannargudi mafia must be secretly thanking the stars for the relief that this protest has given them from the focus of the public and media. Gone are the pesky niece Deepa and the persistent advocate Krishnamoorthy from the limelight. But they also got one more validation of where Chinnamma stands in the public view: down in the gutters.

Vaai-la vasamba vechchu thekka

The tame rookies mutter the rather meek, less adventurous "jallicut". The grizzled veterans who have seen them all feel emboldened to attempt with Jallikkattoo, jallikkattuh, jallikatta. And the name of Alanganallur rolling off the Hindi tongues looks like a jallikkattu bull had viciously trampled it. Visu is a visionary who wrote "thamizhan thamizhana irukkanam, telungan telungana irukkanam"

India Today

In what can be called a tight slap across the face of PETA, India Today in its coverage of the jallikkattu protests ran a split screen ad of, get this, "Salman at 51 - being bad to being human." Yes, the black buck committed suicide.

Jallikkattu protests - My observations

Jallikkattu has traditionally been confined to the fringes of the collective conscience of the urban middle class. An annual event that happened in the rural areas while the urbanites watched TV while the calorie-rich pongal was digested. A distant, faraway phenomenon that was reduced to a few clips on the evening news. This could have continued to be so had it not been for the ban that brought jallikkattu into the living rooms of every household over the recent years.

Protection of native breeds. The PETA-jersey breed nexus. Benefits of A2 milk. There are many reasons - some less vague than the others - to ensure that the tradition of jallikkattu continues. But beyond the merits of these reasons, there is a more fundamental reason to protest: not allow someone sitting in Delhi to dictate how we should live our lives. People that aren't intimately familiar with the cultural and social mores of Tamilnadu should not meddle in our affairs.

A lady on Rajdeep Sardesai's TV show, appearing in her capacity as an "animal rights activist", declared that "jallikkat" has not been part of Tamil culture and that PETA wasn't calling for a ban on Pongal altogether. This mixture of ignorance and arrogance on the part of the North Indians - till recently quite liberal while using Madarasi - will leave the bristling Tamils feeling violated. It is not the right thing to say but Kashmir may not be the first state to leave the Indian union.

This started when sambhar became samburr, the dosai became dosaw and the vadai vadaw. Then the "ji" has started raising its ugly head as an honorific in Chennai today. But when rank outsiders start making rules on how we live our lives or cherry pick from our traditional practices ones deemed suitable for this day and age, we must say with all love and respect, "Abey, f*** off hain!"

My stand

Jallikkattu must happen. This year. And beyond. With regulations (enforced by authorities concerned) that shall put to rest any genuine concerns relating to the welfare of the bulls. I don't claim to be someone familiar with rural traditions and my stand is solely based upon the bits and pieces of information (of varying trustworthiness) that I have come across over the past few days.

North Indian media

The one favor North Indian media can do is to stop their coverage of this issue immediately. More than anything else to stop exposing their complete ignorance of all things Tamilnadu and the lack of their sensibility. Go cover the UP elections, Dangal box-office collections or Arvind Kejriwal's latest meltdown instead.

The BJP fiasco

There is a scene in the movie Pulp Fiction where Samuel Jackson is cleaning up the car after John Travolta shoots someone in the face. The BJP at the moment looks like Samuel Jackson doing "brain detail" after the Congress and DMK had caused this carnage in the first place. Between the lack of clear intent from Delhi and Subramanian Swamy's choice of words, the BJP has simply failed to seize the situation and control the narrative. They could have use this opportunity to gain a political foothold, however slender, but today stand cast as the villains instead. The AIADMK should perhaps sew C K Saraswathy's lips shut.

The Gounder-man rocks!

The quotient of nakkal-filled humor and biting satire packed into the slogans, memes and props leaves me with little doubt that a similar protest elsewhere in India would have been much less colorful. The mixture reference simply stole the show. It would be unethical to not pay our respects to Goundamani.

Chennai's Woodstock

There is something different about watching a movement grow and sustain itself without political or cinema support. I'm suspicious of anything involving the nadigar sangam and the usual suspects on the basis that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. That this group is so far free of cinema-kaarans lends it more credibility. A salute to the crowd for not doing the Northie-style candle light vigils.

When the lion(ess) is away...

...the mice come out and **** themselves. I first became aware of this expression in my first few months of entering the working world. As the protest continues on for a fourth day, I couldn't help but wonder if a protest of this scale would have happened had Jayalalitha been alive. Especially when I saw the occasional poster or two of LTTE Prabhakaran popping up.

A roundup of 2016 cricket

Hello and wishing you a happy new year 2017!

What better way to ring in a new year than to ramble about cricket from the year just gone by? Here are some notes about what I liked from the world of test cricket from the second half (or last quarter?) of 2016.

------------

As a cricket fan, the past few months have been embarrassingly rich. A veritable buffet of fine games, emerging heroes, exciting finishes and pleasant upsets. One couldn’t really ask for more; although waking up early (or staying up late) to take in the entertainment was certainly not easy.

As an Indian cricket fan, the India New Zealand series was a good appetizer. But the only lowlight of the series was the toss. The win toss-bat first-win formula did take away a bit of sheen off the 3-0 score line. Although I would say that the series itself was well contested, India was never found fighting to save a match. Cricket is the only game that throws up an “intense, nail-biting draw” and the lack of a fighting session where a team hangs on by their nails was a bit disappointing. And the unease that grips a fan that the pundits of the cricketing world will write this off as another dust bowl triumph even before, ahem, the dust had settled doesn’t help one bit.

The series that really set the tone was, of course, the 3-0 romp of South Africa against Australia. Any team that can compete on an equal footing against Australia – forget winning – in their own backyard deserves respects. But a visiting team tearing them Aussies a new one down under isn’t something that people of a certain age remember since the marauding buccaneers roamed the cricketing world. That the Springboks did this without the services of AB D and losing Dale Steyn dramatically midway through the first test sweetens the deal further. A victory at either MCG or the Gabba would have been nicer but I’ll take the 2-1 result as such. Take a bow guys.  And that Bavuma-Warner run out??

And when you thought that things couldn’t be any more acceptable came the 1-1 surprise in Bangladesh. The B’s producing limited over victories are no longer termed upsets. They are quietly shedding their “giant killers” tag, routinely snatching a victory here and giving a scare there. I’m not calling those a fluke but test cricket is certainly a sterner examination. A test victory cannot be achieved by merely lady luck flashing her smile at you – she better be wearing a toothy grin over many days. That B’desh managed to pull off a victory against a top tier test team right after a defeat is truly commendable. I was particularly impressed by Mehedi Hasan who proved to be a handful to the touring Englishmen.

The five tests against England set many things right for the Indian fan. First, some revenge (even if served cold) for the 3-1 drubbing in 2014. Second, I don’t know if Kohli had done something to upset them, but the Gods of the toss world finally decided to favor the visitors. So India winning the tests after losing multiple tosses took away that element of “what-if” from the equation (a.k.a one excuse less). In the end it was a great contest between bat and ball. So what if the bat was in Kohli’s hands and the cherry in Ashwin’s? The positives for India were many. The Kohli-Ashwin form, the lower order chipping in with runs, the Dravid-Kumble conduit to identify and blood the right talent from domestic circuit and the problem of excess be it openers (Vijay, Rahul, Parthiv, Gautham and err…Rohit Sharma) keepers (Saha, Parthiv) or spinners (Ashwin, Jadeja and Mishra – all three of them staking a deserved claim for all-rounder). I was super elated by Karun’s knock more for the sweep shots than the big score he piled up. Indian batsmen using their feet against spin is a common sight, less so the sweep shot. To see an Indian bat sweeping fluently was a sight to behold. On the same note, these are early days and sterner tests lie ahead. Good luck young man! The only two points of concern for India would be Ashwin’s ability to be among wickets abroad and our batting unit’s performance against the short/moving ball. I read somewhere that Kohli was considering a county stint ahead of a tour of the UK: professionalism flows forth from the captain! P.S: Kudos to the TNCA for getting the Chepauk stadium match ready after the fury of Varda.

The best fare, however, was reserved for the very last few days of the calendar. The first test between Australia and Pakistan in Brisbane will be recorded in history as having been won by Australia. But the drama that it provided, particularly on day five, was something that the people that watched it unfold will not forget any time soon. Call it the magic of test cricket or a virulent hatred for Aussie cricket, but I was robustly rooting for Pakistan for two full days. Ending up 40 short in a valiant chase of 490 on day five at the Gabba somehow summarizes Paksitan better than any length of prose or any set of statistics. And following up that performance (and cricketing world’s brownie points) with a good old collapse on day five of the Boxing day test? Pakistan’s brand of cricket has changed very little over the years.