Some 'Rationalist Derivations'

Day after day, you keep hearing the heroic deeds of the 'warrior' class called 'Tamils'. Not a day passes without a special mention about the 'tamil pride' and erstwhile bravery of the 'Thalapathis' and 'Anja Nenjans' ( loosely translated as 'Commanders' and 'fear-less hearts' respectively) in many a news paper. Special functions are held every alternate day to appreciate some leader of the 'tamil pantheon' for some supposedly brave act, an impossible feat that was supposed to have been accomplised by the person who is sought to be appreciated. Titles and awards flow freely in the state with every person awarding the other and the other reciprocating the gesture. If you happen to see two people talking in the street then the probablity of one giving away an award to the other cannot be discounted. Don't ask as to what the award was for. An award has to be presented to somebody on a daily basis and that is a sacrosanct duty of the tamil populace. No questions to be asked by the news papers. They usually don't for the large amounts of advertisement material from the powers that be. So, why spoil the steady revenue flow ? Did somebody mention 'freedom of the press' and 'un-biased reporting' ? Probably you are referring to some words that are not even present in the dictionary. Now is the period in history where news papers are paid to publish a news. Leave alone the awards. Let us look at the titles that prefix the names of the dignitaries. As per our tamil nadu's tradition, one is supposed to address another by the title and not by one's name. If you happen to mention somebody's name, even by mistake, then you should probably belong to the so-called upper echelons of the society who does not want to recognize the title holder by the title. How dare you invoke one by his / her name ? Sacrilege, you see. Some titles and the spirit behind the same :

1. "Amma" - In ancient times used to refer to one's mother. But of late has come to mean only one person in the 'Rationalist Republic of Tamil Nadu'. If you happen to mention the true name of this person, then you are probably against the female gender and you are probably a male chauvenist.
2. "Annai" - This also used to mean one's mother. Currently means the female power center that reigns the country by proxy from New Delhi. Don't ever mention the name for a CBI case would be filed against you anytime soon.
3. "Kalaignar" - Originally used to mean an artist. Its current synonyms roughly translate as "An expert in the three forms of the tamil language", " The Thiruvalluvar who is alive", "The Head of the Tamil Family Worldwide", "The Tamil Language", "The Tamil Motherhood's only son" etc
4. "Udan Pirappu" - originally meant one's sibling. Currently means the grass roots worker of the party of "Kalaignar". Literal meaning would vary from 'readily available human-self-immolation-inventory' to 'humans spending all their lives for the DMK to the detriment of their own family'. In otherwords means 'a sacrificial goat'. They are also the only readers of the party organ 'Murasoli' and who who get paid to attend party meetings.
5. "Rathaththin Raththam" - literal meaning - blood of the blood. Not sure what that means. Probably should mean the DNA, RNA, Haemoglobin etc of the blood. Currently means the equivalent of 'Udan Pirappu' in the AIADMK. This group waits in the hot sun for over 12 hours to have a darshan of 'Amma' for 2 minutes.
6. "Thalabathy" - No, not the tamil film of the same name. Currently represents the only person in tamil nadu - the Right Honourable Deputy Chief Minister who is also one of the chosen the sons of the Chief Minister ( in other words "Kalaignar"). Not sure about the wars that he had led from the front.
7. 'Anja Nenjan" - Literally means 'the heart that has no fear'. Currently means the other son of the CM. He also happens to be an Union Minister of Chemicals. Inquiries into the relation between his educational qualifications and the position that he holds are un-warranted. Such inquiries shall expedite one's funeral. He has the innate capability to represent the people of Tamil Nadu in the Parliament without having spoken even once for them in the august assembly. A gifted non-speaker whose ignorance of both Hindi and English has not handicapped him from being an MP. Person who has devised a new electoral mechanism wherein money automatically lands itself in the hands of the voters in white envelopes prior to elections. No body has been able to identify the source of money. Probably Scotland Yard detectives are needed for the same.
8. "Eezha Thamizh Thalabathy" - This could be loosely attributed to Thirumavalavan, Nedumaran, Vaiko and the lot. Anybody who raises ones' decibel levels over the others on the Sri Lankan issue at any point in time could be termed as Eezha Thamizh Thalabathy. In the current political scenario this does not fetch any electoral dividend and hence has been discarded by the ruling DMK. Therefore there are many left-over-chasers who have been detailed above.
9. "Varungaala Mudhalvar" - Literally means the 'future chief minister'. India is so free that anybody can use this title. In fact, it has become a practice to invoke just-born children with this title. Latest entrant into this 'elite-club' is Mr.Karthik Chidambaram whose only qualification is that he is the son of Mr.P.Chidambaram.
10. "Doctor" - Literally means the person who practises medicine as a profession. Currently means who has enough money to lavish on the ruling party so that he could be conferred with this title. Chances are, if you happen to pass by an university, you will be 'doctored' on a first come first serve basis. Otherwise how do you call Stalin a Doctor ?

Tamil Films, NASA, et al

The insatiable ability of the tamil people to bear with such nonsense is to be admired at sincerely. Yes, I am talking about the TV programmes in Tamil that too of the SUN kind. For the n-th possible time the network broadacasts the arrival of a new tamil film that has everything in it that can qualify the movie for a porn-certificate if only it does not have the gravity defying stunt sequences and gory blood-soaked scenes. How does one stand this kind of non-stop-nonsense ? One the one hand you have the very slim and un-shaven hero putting to question all known laws of physics by his stunt scenes while on the other hand we have the heroine who appears time and again in so less costumes that one begins to take pity at her inability to cover the bare essential surface areas of her body. Added to that are the dance sequences ( you need to believe that those are dances ) that are nothing but aerobic exercises in fast-forward fashion of the most skimpily clad girls on the screen. There is also this very essential duty of the heroine to reassure the viewers that her body anatomy is in order and that her cholesterol levels are slightly bordering on the higher side. This she does by appearing in the most skimpily designed costumes ( if you can call them costumes ) that don't have any semblance of any culture ( leave alone tamil culture ). Probably the heroine reminds the viewers that the tamil populace have a very distant origin -- trying to prove Darwin's Theory that man evolved from apes. Probably that is why she apes the apes. The point to be noted is that the mother of the heroine ( a widow 99% of the time ) would be so poor that she wouldn't have the means to buy a replacement saree. She would appear in the same saree all through the film. Additionally there is this handicapped-yet-brilliant brother of the heroine. ( No marks for guessing that the handicap would have been caused by the villain either by way of an 'accident' or by way of making the heroine's mother drink some liquid that could cause deformity of the foetus). Then you have the ubiquitous comedian. The person or persons who would need to have his private parts hurt everytime he appears on the scene - that is how you need to define a comedian. Going by the number of times the comedian Vadivelu has been thrashed below the belt, one can safely assume that he would not need to wear any safety guard attire if he would choose to play cricket anytime in the future. Then come the ubiquitous villain - most likely a local politician who is surrounded by a bunch of goons sporting attire of every concievable nature. And the only intention of the politician would be to get rid of this gravity-defying hero.

NASA would do well to initiate technology transfer from Tamil filmdom unto themselves in the lines of how to make a human being stay afloat in air for a prolonged period of time and at the same time perform acrobatics. The other area of tech transfer could pertain to the ability of the hero to dodge any number of bullets fired from a machine gun. This could be useful in helping astronauts escape from the occassional meteorite while in space.

01-January-2030

Here is an excerpt from the pages of 'The Hindu' dated 01-January-2030 Local News: Madurai: The Chief Minister of South Tamil Nadu Mr.George Azhagiri presided over the 250th foundation laying ceremony for an IT park in Madurai. It is to be noted that all the 249 foundations stones are still intact in their older installed sites all over Madurai functioning as mile stones to depict the journey of IT in the city. Chennai : The Chief Minister of North Tamil Nadu Mr. Anna Nidhi Stalin conducted the routine review meeting of the latest slew of fly-overs in the City. It might be noted that currently there are over 1000 flyovers all over the city and the current set of flyovers are being constructed over the existing flyovers to ease traffic on the currently operational flyovers. The Opposition Leader in the North Tamil Nadu Assembly, Mr. Doctor Ayya Anbumani ( grand son of Dr.Anbumani Ramadoss ) reiterated his earlier demand that the statues of Dr.Ramadoss be erected all over the state should be attended to at the earliest. It might be noted that Dr.Ramadoss ( the founder of the now-defunct PMK ) merged his party with the AIADMK some 20 years ago after a string of defeats in the local assembly elections. In another turn of events, the DK has proposed a motion that statues of its erstwhile leader K.Veeramani be erected near the currently existing statues of EVR all over the state. This, they say, would help erradicate the 'brahmin hegemony' in the state. It is a different matter that there are no brahmins left in the state as all of them have either migrated to the US on H1B visas ( to work in temples that have sprung all over the USA ) or have chosen to move to the other states in the country. National News: New Delhi: The BJP, the main opposition party, reiterated their demand for expediting the hanging of Afzal Guru. It might be noted that Afzal Guru was supposedly responsible for the attack on the parliament some 40 years ago. Interestingly the UPA government has invited Afzal Guru to preside over the Republic Day celebrations this year. The government feels that Afzal Guru's presence would help it win the J&K elections soon. Home Minister Karthik Chidambaram ( son of an earlier Home Minister P.Chidambaram ) reiterated his resolve to fight terrorism. This he explained in the presence of Ajmal Kasab, one of the attackers during the 26/11/2008 attacks on Mumbai. Readers might note that Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru had earlier formed a political party by name TMK ( Terrorists Munnetra Kazhagam ) and have close to 10 MPs in the current parliament who provide outside support to the UPA-VI government. International : India's Prime Minister Mr. Joseph Vadra Gandhi ( son-in-law of Smt. Priyanka Gandhi ), currently on his 10th visit to the USA, requested the US President George Bush VI Jr. to instruct Pakistan to stop funding terrorists in J & K. The US President, it may be recalled, a nobel peace prize winner famous for his talks on peace, has reportedly assured the Indian PM that he would speak with the Pakistan President Mr.Ashraf Musharraf, the grand son of the former President Pervez Musharraf. Special News from Tamil Nadu ( both North and South ): Mr. Aaditya, son of Smt.Kanimozhi, inaugurated a campaign to fight for the rights of the Sri Lankan Tamils. It might be noted that such a campaign has been going on for more than 50 years. Regular Local News: Villagers staged a road-roko in Tiruchi to demand drinking water for their village. Anna University postponed its admissions for the 8th time as the High Court had stayed the implementation of the reservation in admissions in the University as the same had exceeded 100 %. The lawyers of the Madras High Court boycotted the courts for the second year in succession for an incident that occured around 20 years ago in the court premises. It is a different matter that it would not have helped expedite the pending cases even if they had not boycotted the courts.