Mortal blow to an immortal saint

When great leaders die, it has become an Indian habit to bury their ideals, ideas and even their passions alongwith them. Former CM and the immortal heartthrob of millions of Tamilians, especially the downtrodden and womenfolk, MGR, must be turning in his unfinished grave now, for one of his so-called acolytes has just pushed him a foot deeper into mud. If there is anything MGR held close to his heart till his death, it was his unadulterated hatred for Karunanidhi as an evil force and a political opponent.

In fact MGR's entire political baptism and his subsequent successes in the power games of TN was on the sole foundation of his opposition to Karunanidhi, and none, and that includes the self-appointed Man Friday of MGR, R.M.Veerappan, could erase the two decade war of attrition between the duo, from public memory.

Yet if R.M.Veerappan has the temerity to claim that he is a true follower of MGR, while in the company of Karunanidhi and then seeks to honour his only mentor's only bete noir, there could be only two possible reasons: That the loyal servant has concluded that a dead man has no memories, and so no chances of retribution and secondly he himself is suffering from a bout of the now familiar disease called Selective Amnesia.

But then MGR appears to be in elite company for it is not he alone who is being insulted posthumously. R.M.Veerappan, who claims to have been the sole conscience keeper of the charismatic leader, has also sought to resurrect the long dead revolutionary Ramanuja, only to hand out the most demeaning slur on the latter's reputation as social reformer.

One wonders what the hell has Karunanidhi achieved to be entitled to an award instituted in the name of the eleventh century scholar-saint, though the credentials of Veerappan, the R.M one, himself to invoke the long dead saint's name could also be questioned. But then dead greats are always a boon to our present day politicians and even a casual reading of a past who's who would offer them quite a few names for them to institute a few more awards.

Of course, they can rest assured that there would be no dearth of takers, given the craze among the current VIPs for honours, who do not bother to introspect whether they are entitled to it or not.

And so in tune with the trend, Karunanidhi has also accepted this disgrace on Ramanuja, with grace and glee, and has even gone on to suggest the reasons for R.M.Veerappan's sudden enlightenment. The rational CM says that Ramanuja was a great social reformer and so Veerappan must have been guided by that fact when he thought of him (Karunanidhi) as the best choice.

To put it bluntly, the CM's rationale for acceptance of the award, which he is unlikely to turn down, is plain outrage and reeks of a shameless sense of self projection. In short, Karunanidhi seems to say that he himself is a social reformer in the mould of Ramanuja, rather a true descendent of that great saint and hence is entitled to the award so graciously offered by his greatest enemy's once 'loyal' soldier.

Apparently, these paragons of dravidian yore have conveniently forgotten that Ramanuja, who was a revolutionary par excellence in an age of bigotry, was essentially a Believer and it was to enhance and enlarge his basic faith that, irrespective of caste and creed, he sought to unite all and sundry under the single nama of narayana.

Of course, for the hypocritical and hollow rhetoricians of the present dravidian yoke, it would take just a jiffy to invent and invoke a new slogan that would also go well with their Thaanai thalaivan's new found faith. For, their ideologies are as mutable as the towel on their shoulders.

It would not be altogether surprising to hear the chants of om namo narayana from the precincts of the Arivalayam soon, as it would be just another of those lip services that those unseemly occupants offer for public consumption so often. If a Ramanuja award warrants the utterance of the nama of narayana, then so be it.

But then we wonder where from Karunanidhi is going to cook up a history of social service that he claims to have done. If anything, the leader and his band of double-speak hypocrites have only wrought upon this State nothing but disaster whenever they have managed to amble to power.

They pioneered pillage and elevated it to scientific levels, an art which the poor Ramanuja would never even have heard of. Gun toting LTTE militants and bomb happy Al-Umma brand of secularists were unheard of in those days of Dhandams and Kamandalams for the former were all creations of a highly patriotic, revolutionary social reformer called Karunanidhi.

Sriperumbudur, which till May 21 was hailed as the abode of Ramanuja is now the cemetery of a gentle soul called Rajiv, whose blood drenched that land thanks to the reckless ease with which a great self-proclaimed 'social reformer' allowed bomb happy terrorists to play havoc. Indeed, it is difficult to match the current recipient in social reform, for there can be only few practitioners for his brand of service to the nation which had on earlier occasions only been recognised through the invocation of Article 356!

R.M. Veerappan can now think up a few more awards, in the same vein. Having honoured the uncle it would be unfair to leave out the loyal nephew who could be given the Sun award. The son ofcourse has already been awarded the Mayorship. The peace prize could go to Basha of Al-Umma while the Hoarding King award could go to our eminent Minister for power cuts, Veerasamy. The Looker awards can go to top cops who just look on while criminals go scot free.

For the brigand friendly magazine editors there is always the Mag-say-say award for repeating what ever brigands say. And all those who have not been given any specific award could be presented with the coveted Kalaimamani awards, en masse.

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