Whose money is that?
CM Karunanidhi had given March 13 as the deadline for the Rs 500 crore assembly that was to be inaugurated by the PM so that the budget session of the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly could be held in it. The construction at the complex is still incomplete. Almost four months after it was inaugurated, workers are still busy as bees at Omandurar Estate where the swanky new assembly complex is coming up. But that’s another story.
They say where there’s a will (and money which the tax payer is forking out) there’s a way. And so Thota Tharani, the well known art director and production designer, was hired to fashion a temporary dome for the assembly, just like the original, for Rs two crore. Now, to fulfil yet another dream of Karunanidhi – the best ever World Classical Tamil Conference which kicked off this week – yet another “expert”, Thanjavur R Sivasubramaniam, who has created thatched and aluminium-sheet canopies for most political conferences over the last 30 years, was called in.
Karunanidhi has given the expression “pulling out all the stops” a new meaning. Nearly Rs 400 crore has been spent on the extravaganza. Even Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi, trailed off defensively about the expense, “After all the money has been spent on creating infrastructure.” But AIADMK chief Jayalalitha has been handed a great opportunity to score political points. She has already criticized the wasteful expenditure.
A pandal over four lakh square feet resembling a palace from the Chola period has been created. Then there is the food village sprawling over 3 lakh square feet. Sivasubramaniam’s workers (100 of them) from Thanjavur have created the façade of the pandal – 1,100 feet long and 420 feet wide – with palm leaves to symbolize the hoary Sangam literature preserved in palm scripts. In addition, artisans from Jaipur and Kerala have recreated a durbar hall from the Chola era, 300 feet long and 80 feet wide.
Tamil: the new buzzword
Karunanidhi says Tamil is the “mother tongue of the world” and all efforts were made to give the language, which some Tamil lovers argue is older than Sanskrit, its pride of place.
Tamil was the buzzword when it came to shops and hoardings in Chennai where nearly 1500 signboards in English came down and signs such as “Unavagam” (restaurant), Seidithaal Nilayam (Newspaper Mart) and “Thanga malligai” (gold jewellery shop) came up. Other shop-keepers who didn’t want to mess with their brand names had to get new signages made with the English title of the shop written in Tamil to fob off the marauding corporation staff who went around the streets of Chennai to enforce the Tamil Nadu Shops and Establishments Act, 1947 which mandates prominence of Tamil in signboards, followed by English and other languages.
The proposal to name streets after Tamil scholars is still on the cards with mayor Subramaniam promising that a list would be sent to the state government for validation.
Anna university took a giant stride releasing textbooks and curriculum in Tamil for mechanical and civil engineering courses. So students wanting instruction in Tamil can enrol, but how many will opt for it in a globalised world is an open question. After all, they might think they are limiting their future so that Karunanidhi can get an ego boost.
Politics, according to an army officer, has caused Tamils to lose out in the army. While physical fitness and general knowledge makes Tamils eminently suitable, the anti-Hindi feeling created by politicians has given them a handicap when it comes to communication skills. While language (or lack of it) is no barrier for promotion, army personnel need to know Hindi as they travel around and need it to interact with colleagues.
Going the extra mile
But at the Madras High Court, initial indulgence by judges to advocates demanding that proceedings be in Tamil, turned into impatience on the day the conference was inaugurated by the President in Coimbatore. The court lambasted the attempt by advocates, 20 of whom were arrested for going on a fast demanding that Tamil be declared as the official language of the court, for trying to turn the legal institution into a “political platform”. There was a partial boycott in Madurai unlike in Chennai.
In fact when Karunanidhi’s son and union minister, M K Azhagiri, met six advocates on hunger strike so that they would call it off and not ruin his father’s moment, the lawyers embarrassed him by pointing out his inability to speak in Tamil in the parliament. Azhagiri withdrew hastily, but the advocates continued agitating till the judges said enough was enough. “They (the advocates) should not indulge in hunger strikes, shouting of slogans, hold processions, display banners, distribute pamphlets or hold any other kind of demonstration or bring in persons with political affiliations to address meetings or hold any other activities except the discharge of their duties as lawyers,” said the judges granting bail to the advocates.
The irony, however, was that a day after the Madras High Court said that there was nothing to stop advocates from arguing in Tamil, only one advocate made bold to speak the language which is being celebrated at the Coimbatore conference. In fact, newly appointed Chief Justice M Yousuf Eqbal who is Bihar-born, was accommodating enough to hear brother judge D Murugesan's translation of advocate Ramesh’s argument. This is what is called going the extra mile for Tamil. But with such a huge backlog of cases for the courts to deal with, should the court’s time be utilized for non-Tamil speaking judges to be forced to rely on translations of arguments in Tamil? Besides, isn’t there a danger of something getting lost in translation?
Was it a bird, a plane or Thiruvalluvar?
While Karunanidhi released a hot air balloon carrying an invitation for the Tamil conference and a cycling quartet from the Friends of Police set off to propagate Tamil in the north, a 27-year-old man, Muralidharan, had a sad tale to tell. Muralidharan, from Arakonam, who claimed he had many records to his credit – dancing continuously on stage for 72 hours, changing 30 costumes within 15 minutes, singing non-stop for 112 hours and, above all, recently having staged a dance show, acting out all the 1,330 couplets of Thirukural – protested in front of the government guest house saying he had not been invited for the conference. Naturally, Muralidharan came dressed as Thiruvalluvar, the author of Thirukural! Muralidharan
Tamil and Thanni
Invitations may not have reached all the people wanting to attend the conference, including many contemporary writers in Tamil, but the thousands at the venue could celebrate their presence spiritedly. After all in classical Tamil literature, including the Kamban Ramayana, there are many references to toddy, getting heady, etc. Tasmac, which is the one stop shop for booze (called thanni in slang) in the state, sent instructions to every liquor shop in the textile city and its surroundings to stock at least Rs 20 lakh worth of bottles at any point of time. Shops usually hold stocks worth Rs 3 lakh in a day, so we are talking nearly seven times the quantity of liquor. “We have told employees to rent nearby space in case their shops cannot accommodate all the bottles,” a Tasmac official said. And while tipplers normally complain that they have to take what they can get because Tasmac shops have limited brands, the “floating” population at the World Classical Tamil Conference (WCTC) can get every brand of IMFL they thirst after but could not get earlier. Cheers.
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