Mr Kalaignar, I will miss you
Last Updated : 15 Jan 2011 03:45:07 PM IST
Dear Mr Kalaignar,My Pongal gift to you this year is this: I am leaving Chennai and The New Indian Express. Yes, you may take off your dark glasses and rub your eyes in disbelief. I may not be the only one going, however; you’re probably going to go as well. Go from government that is, after the coming assembly elections. I of course pray to God to grant you a long life (yes, even though you are a public atheist who conveniently allows his wife to be privately pious) for who else, if not you, will keep your family from tearing itself apart, limb from limb, in the days to come, after your party loses power? There is a political family where I am headed, the Thackerays of Mumbai, but they are nowhere as sprawling and operatic as yours. There is hope for some kind of fireworks, however; the Shiv Sena has at different times opposed Tamil migrants and Bihari migrants, and I will be that rare breed of migrant known as Bihari from Tamil Nadu. Perhaps the Shiv Sena and I can have as cosy a relationship as you have had with me, Mr Kalaignar.A friend asked if I would miss Chennai and I thought, what an absurd question. Over the last four years, Chennai has become a part of me. My three teenagers have become better persons here; my life took a spiritual turn; and each and every day at the Express was a learning experience. Indeed, I now get irritated with Delhi journalists, for I get the feeling that for them the country ends at Gurgaon, Delhi’s southern suburb. The fact is that the four southern states are more dissimilar than any four randomly selected northern states. The distances within each state are vast. Delhi journalists cannot know India unless they spend time in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad or Kochi; and this is one of the reasons that Indian journalism has taken a few knocks of late.This is not to say that everyone here is enlightened. Several journalists congratulated me for my move “back north”, a phrase which would make any Mumbaikar roar with displeasure. My wife, an Assamese, has been called a “north Indian”, which is galling for anyone from the Northeast, given the depressing neglect and discrimination they face from the Hindi heartland, and given the fact that the only physical connection they have with the rest of India is the narrow 20-km Siliguri corridor squished between Bangladesh, Bhutan and Tibet. Obviously there are Tamils who need to consult maps more often; and for this I blame the political rhetoric you have deployed to stay relevant, Mr Kalaignar.The other problem with your rhetoric is that you see it as a substitute for proper governance. Over the past four years, I have witnessed Chennai change in a variety of ways. The most obvious is when you look out the window, or walk down the street, or drive across town. I have driven from Adyar to Ambattur and back, via Vadapalani, via Porur and via Nungambakkam, and I can authoritatively say that Chennai’s traffic has deteriorated alarmingly. Driving in Chennai is now a worse experience than driving in Bangalore. Ten days ago I visited Delhi and I saw the change in the city where I lived and worked for 20 years before coming South. Perhaps it is not a fair comparison, for many resources were pumped into Delhi’s infrastructure to better it for the Commonwealth Games. It has worked: Delhi has an uncluttered and aesthetically pleasing look, even in the suburbs. This is not the case with Chennai.As chief minister of one of India’s wealthiest states, you cannot take refuge in the fact that Delhi obtained funds for self-improvement. You also cannot take refuge in the fact that improving a city’s roads is a job too lowly for a chief minister; for if you look at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, he had to start at the very basics of law and order and roads in order to convince the voters to let him continue. Thus, you cannot claim to be another Nitish Kumar (as you recently tried) when assembly polls roll around.Chennai has also changed the past few years due to the influx of non-Tamils. Migration from other states was traditionally low due to cultural reasons, but it seems that high economic growth and a robust private sector (corporate behaviour in the South is far different from corporate behaviour in the North, in a positive way) has forced the pace of migration in the past few years. And this is only going to increase in the years to come as more managerial and professional staff (and editors) are needed. This will change the complexion of Chennai by the end of the new decade, in more ways than either of us can predict.So you must introspect, Mr Kalaignar, on the kind of political rhetoric you have used and encouraged. Will it foster a local Bal Thackeray type among your successors? Or will people see through you and your family long before that? For another thing I witnessed during my stay in Chennai was the end of the Sri Lankan war against the LTTE. As documented by even the UN, the Sri Lankan government committed human rights abuses during its endgame against V Prabakaran. You not only headed our state government, but the UPA at the Centre relied heavily on you. Yet somehow I don’t recall you or your family being vocal about the collateral damage. I won’t be surprised if your usual rhetoric now pays diminishing dividends.Lastly, I would like to thank you and your party for re-introducing me to 13-digit numbers after more than a quarter of a century (when I was in University, studying maths). When your party campaigns this summer, don’t be surprised to see signs everywhere that read “`1760000000000”. That was our headline, inspired by you, when the CAG report on the 2G spectrum allocation scam became public. Even if your well-wishers try to bribe the voters, the voters will look at all those zeroes and expect a bit more. It doesn’t look good for you.All in all, I’ve had an enjoyable four years in Chennai. I will miss the city; I will miss my readers, who have constantly egged me on; I will miss my colleagues, who produced a paper that made you look bad and made me look good; I will miss my boss, Manoj Sonthalia, who resisted your pressure to muzzle me; and most of all, Mr Kalaignar, I will miss you. Happy Pongal.Regards, etc.editorchief@expressbuzz.com
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