Neighbourly advice

One shouldn't talk bad about one's neighbours. This is about the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu. Big goings-on in Tamil land for the past few weeks related to the issue of premarital sex. The Tamils are big on culture and are very sensitive about cultural issues. An actress, who at one point of time was revered as a goddess in Tamil Nadu with temples built in her name, said something about premarital sex and safe sex. This ticked off some of the moral watchdogs. Tamil people don't engage in premarital sex. It's against their culture, their moral values, etc., shouted the custodians of Tamil morality and culture. They used brooms, slippers and other culturally significant objects to browbeat this woman and others who supported her to back down and apologize.

I'm not in a position to talk about culture. The only culture I'm familiar with is the one related to bacteria, when you do a urine culture to find out if you have strange bacteria in your body. Tamil culture, on the other hand is as old as bacteria itself (billions of years, I presume). And that may be the reason why sex is taboo in Tamil culture. Bacteria, in case you missed your biology class, reproduce asexually, not sexually.

My favourite character (and perhaps the greatest character) in Mahabharata is a man who was ditched and later blackmailed by his mother, tricked by gods and killed through unfair means by an infinitely inferior brother. "Karna" was a bastard, an outcome of a premarital fling by his mother Kunthi.

These culture dolts should read H. L. Mencken's take on morality. 'Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always sceptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure."'

This is a very accurate view as we have solid proof of this in "El Presidente Bush", with his moral values, his black and white moral certainties, and his hotline to god who asked him to attack Iraq etc. On the other hand, it also reminds me of the greatest Tamil of modern times, Periyar Ramasami Naicker, who cared a hoot about chastity in women and other such social mores. A person who challenged the existing set up and worked for social reform.

The election scene: The Left won the Trivandrum parliament by-election. The Right's soap opera continues even after suffering a loss of 80% of their votes. The Congress is licking their wounds and getting ready to quickly fill their coffers, in anticipation of being kicked out in the next State elections (in a few months time). The Left has its own problem. They're now suffering from Democratic Indira Congress (K), or DIC(K). DIC (Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation) is also a medical disorder that could lead to blood clots, bleeding and other complications. A very ominous sign for the Left.

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