 "Photo: Amshudhagar/Wikipedia")
One of the first songs (at least the first stanza) I managed to memorise in my early childhood was very predictably from a Rajnikanth block buster.
“Podhuvaaga En Manasu Thangam
Oru Pottiyinnu Vandhu Vittaa Singam
(Usually my heart is of gold, but when a challenge comes up it turns a lion)”, it went.
After several performances before visiting relatives and friends, I remember my maternal uncle making me sing in my LKG voice and record in his new tape recorder. The cassette survived for several years before it got overwritten, losing yet another part of my childhood forever.
Though the song talks of the lion, I later learnt that it was from a movie titled after the more manageable domestic herbivore, bull. “Murattu Kaalai (Tough bull)”, the 1980 release was a comeback for the iconic AVM productions and cemented the place of the Superstar. He played the titular role kaalaiyan and my favorite song itself follows our working class hero’s stupendous victory over the bull owned by his richer adversary.If you watch this clip you will not miss how Rajni managed to walk away with all the glory and the hit song with so fewer close up shots. The guy, who gets injured by the bull, is actually the professional. Such are the ways of cinema. (Click here)
Rajni was not the only hero who encountered and conquered the bull, nor was he the last. Kamal Haasan did his bit in Virumaandi, almost two decades later. Jallikattu and the bulls happily rode on the publicity and it soon became a hit among international tourists, who come to South India for its temples.
Born and brought up in Madurai, which is undisputedly the jallikattu epicenter of the world, with foreign tourists infested Alanganallur and numerous other centres vying for attention every year, I was never far away from Jallikattu folklore. I can recall the horrible sight of the swollen foot of a neighbourhood youth, who was run over by the bull on jallikattu. I have heard stories of bulls running into the spectators, read about the odd ‘vaadivasal’ the path through which bulls are let loose or the gallery collapsing and people being rushed to Rajaji Hospital.
I have also heard about stories of bulls being fed ‘saarayam (desi liquor)’ or other medicine to enrage it. Some accounts also talk about bulls sent in with a bite on their tails or the occasional cracker tied. While these practices need to be banned, nobody ever thought of the sport as something that harmed the animal itself until the days leading up to the ban. Unlike the Spanish bull fights, which focus on bleeding the beast, torturing it and often eventually killing it, in Jallikattu, the focus is on retrieving the prize money from the horns. All the bull has to do is run and defy. He lives and often gets pampered.
The fact that this has been the wider sentiment of a majority of people in the state was obvious when people from opposite ends of the political spectrum welcomed the government move to lift the ban on Friday. Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan, the tallest leader BJP has in Tamil Nadu today, was busy tweeting his elation welcoming the move. He thanked the prime minister over phone, he claimed on twitter. His Congress rival Karti Chidambaram tweeted “Welcome Move”
The more hardline elements on twitter saw it as a religious conspiracy painting the ‘animal rights’ activists, which got the sport banned as ‘Christian NGOs’.
At least on twitter the most vocal opposers of the lifting of the ban were people outside Tamil Nadu. Kiran Bedi, BJP’s chief ministerial candidate in last year’s Delhi elections did not mince words.
“Barbaric projection and indulgence in activities such as #Jallikattu, despite being banned by SC does not augur well for us as a society,” she tweeted.
Senior journalist Shekar Gupta tried to connect it to the terror attack, tweeting, “Shameful how BJP & Cong who even squabble over how to fight terror, find unanimity on ritual torture & murder of innocent Bulls #jallikattu.”
But, the controversial Markandey Katju, who has spent considerable time in the state during his stint at the Madras High Court, was keen to do a ‘Murattu Kaalai’ himself. “#Jallikattu If invited by some organization I wld like to come on Pongal to Chennai and personally handle the first bull ( though I am 70 ),” he joked.
Very clearly, the bull, like his female counterpart, has been politicised. Radhakrishnan’s rush to take credit and Chidambaram’s guarded welcome show that they want to ride the public sentiment or at least, they do not want to be seen standing in the way.
As the state goes to elections in about three months from now, the national parties, particularly the BJP, would be hoping to make their mark.
In a state, that has alternated between Amma and Kalaignar for the last six assembly elections, spanning 27 years and Dravidian party rule for five decades now, it is a pity that the national parties have to still clutch at straws such as these hoping for some electoral gains.
There is enough resentment against both regional parties. It is up to a charismatic leader to emerge confidently and offer a third alternative and reap this massive multi-decade anti-incumbency.
Rajnikanth himself has been running away from this responsibility, which his fans want him to take up for last 25 years. At 65, he does not have any meaningful career in films left. Anyone who watched Lingaa would agree that it’s becoming increasingly painful both for him and his fans.
It is no secret that the BJP has been wooing the Super Star for a while. Prime Minister Modi had a much publicised meeting in the run up to the 2014 elections and an animated video of the two titled 'Modiyappa' had gone viral.
BJP seems to have got the bull in the bag. But for it to pay dividends, they must manage to convince the Murattu Kaalai too.
‘Unmaiye solven, Nallathe Seiven…vetri mel vetri varum (I speak only truth …I do only good…Victories will follow….”).That was Panchu Arunachalam’s next stanza in the 'Podhuvaaga' song.
If Murattu Kaalai bites the bait, all he needs to do is speak the truth.
