Ponniyin Selvan Varalaatru Peravai

Hi Priya, Dr.Sridhar,

Good discussion going on.....a healthy debate..but its a pity that
out of 470 members only two are three are discussion. Fine everyone
has their own commitments and we should not comment on that.
Initially I was a bit taken aback, because when i joined this group,
I thought this group discusses about the history and chola dynasty.
But I find that everything from movies to caste system is discussed.
Later I thought, ok anything which is within limits and healthy makes
a good debate. Let me pour in some of my thoughts too.

I am not good in literature and have not read many a books and so I
cannot comment on the literary works as you people do, but I strogly
belive that the current day so called literarians lack quality. As
Priya rightly said, we cant find a great poet after Barathiyar. And
my frank opinion is, having named our group after PS, it would be
great to debate and know about our own great writers and scholers
instead of talking about westerners and their culture.Fine let me
leave the topic of literature here, as I am not the right person to
disucuss about that.

Its good that everyone here accepts the fact that, the caste system
in hinduism is based on the work people were doing and not by birth.
No were in the Hindu scripture, as rightly pointed out by Priya,
people were discriminated by caste. Everyone were doing thier duty
and were living in Harmony. Ofcourse there were stray incidents of a
higher caste discriminating a lower caste etc.Untouchability, not
allowing the lower caste into temples are man made and was purely
done to show ones superiority over other, which is not at all human
nature. Some things in our society are done without reasoing. For
example, all of us when we goto vinayaka temple, slowly hit our head
with both the knuckles and cross our leg and do thopukaranam. How
many know why its being done. 90% people do it blindly thinking that
it has to be done before pillayar and nothing else.Similarly, long
long ago some chavanist upper caste person would have started the
untouchability or not allowing lower caste into temple etc. which was
followed by the later people without questioning. But here all the
upper caste cannot be blamed because most of them are doing it
without knowing what it means. If some exceptional person questions,
he becomes an outcast in their community, and due to this fear no one
opens their mouth. afterall man is a social being. Best example is
Bharatiyar who was treated as an out cast by the fellow brahmins of
that age. Whatever be the case, these blind practices has to be
undone.

Man's general mentality is to remember the bad things for life time
and forget the good things then and there. Thats why we are still
talking about the caste system even in todays world. As Priya quoted
there are lots of history and instances where the upper caste have
treated the lower caste equal. Sankara prostrated before a pulaya,
Ramanujachari converted hundreds and thousands of lower caste people
into brahmins by wearing upanayanam to them, out of 63 nayanmars only
a few are brahmins, the list goes on. Even in Ramayanam, lord rama
accepts a lower caste Guha as his brother, a vanara Hanuman as his
brother. In many instances he embraces Hanuman out of love. No indian
scripture preached untouchability. Most of the misconceptions are
spread only due to political gains. Why no one talks about
Bharatiyars good deeds towards the lower caste. He too wore poonal to
the harijans and took them to the agraharam, he faced the wrath of
his family members and his community. Bhimrao Ambedkar belongs to a
lower caste community. But 'Ambedkar' is the name of his brahmin
teacher which Bhimrao accepted as part of his name. If one were to
accept others name as their name, how much the other person would
have influenced his/her life. Why is that brahmin teacher not talked
about while talking about ambedkar? The great tamil language which we
hail, was rejunevated by swamitha iyer, whom we call tamil thatha,
without him we would have lost many of the rare tamil literature.
Dr.Abdul Kalam, in his autobiography,"wings of fire", in the very
first chapter thanks many of his teachers who influenced him. More
than half of those teachers were brahmins. Why dont the society see
the service rendered by the brahmins to the society.

I am not sure who wrote this, I think its Dr.Sridhar, that everyday
in the newspaper we can read that a lower caste was killed by the
upper caste. But if you see, not even a single incident will be
involving a brahimin. Its generally said that a upper caste killed a
lower caste. Brahmins are not the only upper caste. But it has become
practice to associate brahmins with upper caste and upper caste means
only brahmins. You may ask me why I am taking it in the wronge sense.
Becuase I found a anti-brahmin flavour in all the mails in this
debate. I thougth I should correct some misconcptions, if any. Being
educated we should see both sides of the coin and thats why I stress
that upper caste do not consists of only brahmins. As I said, human
nature is to forget the good and remember only the bad. Likewise, the
society remembers only the bad things done by a very few upper caste,
but forget to see the lot many good things done by the majority of
the upper caste. va.u.chidambaram pillai lost all of his property for
the sake of the country.

If this is the case in tamil nadu, at the national level its still
worse. Tailians are discriminated to the core and if its a brahmin,
thats the end of it. Again kappalotiya tamilan is a best example. His
name is not in the limelight of the indian freedom struggle.
kattabomman who thought about freedom two hunder years before Gandhi
or Nehru is not known nation wide. Bhagat singh and Veera vanchi did
the same thing, but Bhagat singh is a national hero, where as veera
vanchi isnot known outside tamilnadu, becuase, first he is a
tamilian, second he is a brahmin. I am not here to advocate for the
upper caste people, but like to stress that, if educated people like
us are not seeing both sides of the coin, how can we expect the
society to do so. As long as there is bitterness, inequality can
never be eradicated.

I wish to write more, but already its quite lengthy and i think I
have bored all of you a lot. Will be backat a later time, if time
permits. Sorry if I have said something wrong here.

Hi Everyone,

A very nice and a healthy discussion is going on.I would also share some
points with
you as per my knowledge.Iam not very good at literature anyhow according to
my knowledge, as Priya
rightly pointed out there is nor great novelist or poets now in Tamil.After
the uprise of cinema,
the entire nature of writing poems was spoiled and now if you try to hear
the lyrics of the cinema songs 90% of the songs are very vulgar I cannot
call the songs as soft porn or something else.You can argue that People
likes it, yes pepole likes it but only for a short time say 'O..Podu' or
'manamtha rasa' only short lived we can hear them for a month or two after
that ????.So as priya said immortality is not given by the mass.

While speaking about novels, junk?? YES!! I haven't read a good novel after
Kalki's writings.The 'Kalikattu Idikasam' of vairamuthu was Not Bad but it
can't compete elsewhere.

Movies, I disagree with you in some points.You cant say there are no good
movies coming.There are some movies which are very good and commercially hit
to some extent.Take the movie 'Kudaikul Malai'.See the screenplay of the
movie, I can say it's up to the hollywood standards, also you should note
the movies like '12B','Kakka Kakka' Even if they had heroism they are at
acceptable level and the story telling was very good.Even Hollywood produces
more junk movies.

For the caste system I would like to point out the following very famous
story, whcih will be very suitable...

"Put eight monkeys in a room. In the middle of the room is a ladder, leading
to a bunch of bananas hanging from a hook on the ceiling. Each time a monkey
tries to climb the ladder, all the other monkeys are sprayed with ice water,
which makes them miserable.
Soon enough, whenever a monkey attempts to climb the ladder, all of the
other monkeys, not wanting to be sprayed, set upon him and beat him up.
Soon, none of the eight monkeys ever attempts to climb the ladder. One of
the original monkeys is then removed, and a new monkey is put in the room.
Seeing the bananas and the ladder, he wonders why none of the other monkeys
are doing the obvious, but, undaunted, he immediately begins to climb the
ladder. All the other monkeys fall upon him and beat him silly. He has no
idea why. However, he no longer attempts to climb the ladder.
A second original monkey is removed and replaced. The newcomer again
attempts to climb the ladder, but all the other monkeys hammer the crap out
of him. This includes the previous new monkey, who, grateful that he's not
on the receiving end this time, participates in the beating because all the
other monkeys are doing it. However, he has no idea why he's attacking the
new monkey.
One by one, all the original monkeys are replaced. Eight new monkeys are now
in the room. None of them have ever been sprayed by ice water. None of them
attempt to climb the ladder. All of them will enthusiastically beat up any
new monkey who tries, without having any idea why."

That's exactly what is happening now.In early days, people were separated by
the profession thay are doing 'Chatriyan','Navidan' etc.. not by birth -
This concept will be clearly stated in 'Bhavat Gita' only after then the
classification by birth came and its continuing tinn now and none of them
know why are we 'Brahmin' or 'Chettiar' or something except the reason that
his/her parents are Brahmin or Chettiar.

Overall I think priya is right in her points....

Dear Doctor,

>I totally disagree with the statement that Mass are not needed and you only
need critis to keep a work going....

You should understand one fact, Iam not at all saying that mass are not
needed.They are
definitely a part of the success of any art but only to a lesser propotion.

I can tell you one point, The art which has very mass support can fail but
an art which went through critics seldom fails.As I said in the previous
mail, the songs 'O..Podu' and similar songs had a very strong mass appeal,
but would you say them as immortal!! now itself its very rare to hear that
songs.

To make an art immortal, 75% Critics and 25% mass appeal is
needed.Definitely it is difficult (I dosen't mean it impossible) to make an
art immortal without masses,but its not like, doctor you are saying that
mass is the primary reason.

As already said by priya, Mass gives temporary fame to art and critics only
give immortality.

>Unnal Mudiyum thambi Udayamoorthi is a good example..

I can prove my point by the movie "Unnal Mudiyum thambi" itself.Take "Unnal
Mudiyum thambi" and "Gilli" both had mass appeal. "Unnal Mudiyum thambi"
survived crtics while "Gilli" ????.Even after so much years we are talking
about "Unnal Mudiyum thambi" but we wont remember "Gilli" next month.

Critics will shape an artist to develop better, because of the critics Kalki
wrote an chapter explaning what happened in future to the characters in
PS.But mass takes us to an imaginary world thinking we are the heroes.

Take 'Harry Potter' Compare the First book and fifth book you can clearly
see the diffrence between the writings.The first one was very good.

>the movies like '12B',
>12B was a poor Remake of Sliding Doors....You should see it.

I alerady said I quoted the movies '12B' and 'kakka Kakka' for the way of
telling stories and not about the stories.

I don't remember exactly, but someone said through this discussion that
kalki wrote small short stories for his daily needs, also he wrote
'PS','SS','KP' etc..

That's what we need today.Let our writers write songs like 'Yeappadi
Yeappadi Samanjatu Yeapaddi' but parallely create some masterpieces.That
will make Tamil to greater heights or atleast will make it survive. We
should not make Tamil as what is now Sanskrit, talking of past prides -
'Once upon a time Sanskrit was very good.'

I can say you something doctor,

'Winning is important but it's not everything'

Win the masses by creating what they expect like 'Gilli' or present tamil
novels, but create some masterpieces for our future generation....

Dear Venish



Critics will shape an artist to develop better, because of the critics Kalki wrote an chapter explaning what happened in future to the characters in PS.

I beg to disagree Kalki wrote the last Chapter for the masses.He wrote that for his vasagargal and neyargal....thats what makes it great...read the mudivarai yourself.....

http://www.tamil.net/projectmadurai/pub/pm0169/ponni5d.pdf
read the mudivurai you dont need any fonts...

if you read this there has been no mention about critics.only about his fans....Sorry


The masses are as important as critics thats my point You cannot argue is the mother more important or is the father more important..Both are needed thats exactly how it is between masses and critical acclaim....

Thats what I have been trying to tell all this while but Unfortunately it has been misconstrued that I have been saying Masses are important.

We need both

I rest my case

Sri

Dear Saravanan



Just to add to the list - works of Richard Bach.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull with beautiful pictures
and some other works are on net.



Of Thanks Saravanan another richard Bach Fan....Hes wonderful isnt he Are they on the net can you sent me the links



We have also forgotten Erich Segal..His Love Story Class and Doctors are great

Though I love Olivers Story