Obama of India
The Badshah of Madurai, M K Azhagiri, recently made the Organizing secretary(South Zone) of the DMK as a reward for pulling off a hat trick after winningthe Thirumangalam bypoll recently, may have given the diktat to his cadre thathe would like his 58th birthday to be a low-profile event, but who's listening?Unlike actors Rajanikanth and Kamal Hassan, who gave a similar decree to theirfans as their gesture of compassion for the plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils, andwere taken seriously because their respective supporters felt they meant whatthey said, the DMK cadre can take no chances. In politics, it does not pay totake anything at face value, it pays more to cover all your bases. So, Maduraitown is plastered with at least 700 flex boards, hailing Azhagiri, among otherthings, as the Obama of India. Perhaps Karti Chidambaram started the trendbecause in November, his birthday had sycophants labelling him the Rahul Gandhiof Tamil Nadu. Well, the positive thing about this is that Azhagiri's birthdayhas boosted the sales of flex boards in these times when even a Microsoft isshedding jobs faster than a dog sheds hair. One more good thing is thatenvironmentalists can take heart that they are not paper posters because thenmore trees would have to be felled.
Dynasty Tales
What is likely to happen after the elections one will have to leave toconjecture, but at the moment, like the DMK's symbol -- rising son -- thefortunes of the Karunanidhi brood is shining brightly. Not that it is newsanymore with dynasties flourishing everywhere and the Badals adding a newdimension to it when son Sukhbir Singh Badal became the deputy CM to daddyPrakash Singh Badal who is the CM. But as a matter of record, one must statethat the DMK today has at least five members of the Karunanidhi clan at variouspositions in the party. Three children – Stalin (treasurer), Azhagiri(organizing secretary, South), Kanimozhi (member of the DMK policyimplementation committee under Karunanidhi with Stalin and Azhagiri as members;and also the head of a committee to promote arts, literature and rationalism)and one granddaughter, Kayalvizhi, who is debuting in the party as secretary ofthe DMK women's wing campaign committee. And following the December reunion withthe Maran brothers, grandnephew Dayanidhi Maran has been made a member of the high-level policy implementation committee. Are there any protests nowthat a third generation of the clan has got a foothold in the DMK? Not even awhimper. Compare that to the high decibel noise made about 15 years ago whenVaiko, at the time one of the most promising leaders in the DMK, left in a huffbecause Karunanidhi plumped for son Stalin. Times are a changing.
Devil Quoting Scriptures
A section of Indians -- including the one and only Amitabh Bachchan -- havecriticized the wave-making Slumdog Millionaire for showing "povertyporn" and for trotting out all the clichés about India. But some of theclichés are true, for instance, some people are beyond the long arm of the law.It's not true in the US, Michael Jackson and O J Simpson and our very owndesigner Anand Jon, come to mind instantly whereas in India, the number ofcriminals who are MLAs and MPs is long and exhaustive. In TN, CM-in-waitingStalin was recently slapped with a case for bribing voters in the run up to theThirumangalam bypoll but since then nothing has been heard about it.
Nearly two years ago, there was a brouhaha over a kidney scam and a Chennaidoctor, Dr Palani Ravichandran, was arrested in Mumbai in October 2007 after a"kidney donor" Jeetu Vithal Borkar, blew the whistle on the racket.Ravichandran was charged with offences under the Human Organs TransplantationAct (HOTA). It was alleged that Ravichandran made crores with his almostassembly line set up to take kidneys from the poor, pay them a pittance,transplant the organ to some rich patient from the gulf/Malaysia and then laughall the way to the bank. He is believed to have operated at the Bharati Rajahospital and used the Saint Thomas Mount hospital as a place for post-operativecare. Last week, a sessions court in Mumbai acquitted Dr Ravichandran in thekidney racket case, while disposing of a revised petition from him seeking toset aside the criminal proceedings. The judge also dismissed Borkar's complaintand set aside all further proceedings on the complaint pending before theAdditional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's in Mumbai. Distributing copiesof the Sessions Court order and other relevant documents at a press conferencehere recently, Dr Ravichandran said that the acquittal had proved his innocence.He also claimed that he had written a book on the commercialisation of medicineand human organ transplantation, highlighting its misuse. A case of the devilquoting scriptures?
But Kidneys Are Still For Sale
Chennai which has acquired notoriety as a kidney scam capital -- in fact one ofits suburbs, Villivakam, is called kidneyvakkam after the first scam surfacedhere many years ago -- is constantly revisited by kidney "donation"rackets, so entrenched is the trade. Thus, all the noise made during the DrRavichandran episode only pushed the trade underground and it has now bouncedback with some of the co-ordinates being different. For instance, operations areheld across the border in Thrissur, Kerala, and it's no hole in the corneraffair because donors have all the documentation including no objectioncertificates, to get around HOTA. One thing that has not changed is that poorpeople are still the ones donating and rich people are the ones receiving. It'sa no brainer that the racket is back. One other difference is that the womendonating (women were largely identified because their kidneys are in bettershape and not ravaged by alcohol as is the case with many men) get around Rs80,000, a tidy sum of money that helps them educate children, pay loan sharks orset themselves up in some small business because they are widowed/ abandoned.Back then, it was the Tsunami Colony at Tondiarpet which was the stomping groundfor the intricate network of kidney brokers. Now too, it's the same colony thatis being targeted so some "family member" gets a kidney as thecommercialization of kidney donation is back. Which is a pity, because thisstate was slowly earning a more noble title – as one where relatives arealtruistic enough to donate the organs of a loved one after he/she is gone.
Chennai's Oscar Connection
Chennai's Oscar laurels may not come from A R Rahman alone but also fromanother Chennaite , who is also a composer, Prasanna. Prasanna has scored musicfor Smile Pinki, a documentary on two Indian children born with a cleftlip. Prasanna, who counts IIT Madras as his alma mater, is a rock and jazzmusician, now settled in the US. The documentary was shot in Varanasi and isdirected by New York-based filmmaker Megan Mylan. Prasanna's father, Ramaswamy,who lives in Chennai, says: "We are very happy and proud that my son willbe there at the Oscar ceremony. We hope the document makes the cut."
Interestingly, the self-taught musician has also played the lead guitar forRahman. So it's fairly certain that a Chennaite will bring Oscar glory. My moneyis on Rahman, considering two of the three songs that are nominated are hiscompositions. Incidentally, the song Jai Ho that has been nominated hasChennai's Mahalakshmi Iyer and Tanvi Shah accompanying Sukhwinder Singh.Sukhwinder says he began his singing career from Chennai. Slumdog Millionairehas many other Chennai connections. The track, Liquid Dance, has been sung bySri Madhumitha, and the track Gangsta Blues, has been sung by rap singer Blaaze,both of whom are based in Chennai. Most of the singers just trusted "Rahmansir" and sang their hearts out and now they are elated that Slumdog….is making so many waves.
