Tuesday, January 08, 2008

More about the Sydney Test

This is proving to be fun. Everyone is frothing at the mouth, and every one is an expert. Australian and English columnists attack Indian team for being casteist, Indians retaliate back at the Australian's treatment of the aborigines - though neither knows what the other is talking about.

Though a fan of Periyar, I never thought the day would come when a Guardian columnist would invoke Periyar in a cricket article.

The value attached to whiteness is a sickness in south Asian society, which badly needs the antidote of a "black is beautiful" movement. There are precedents in the lower caste insurgencies associated with Periyar (founder of Dravidian movement in south India) and Ambedkar (the Dalit, ie "untouchable" liberator).


And another favorite line from this fiasco - this time from Timblair.net
you nation of dinner ruining telemarketers with engineering degrees.

6 comments:

Hawkeye said...

chenthil,

i think there is racism in indian cricket. not caste based recism but color based. i think kambli was taunted for his color.

looking at the way they made fun of symonds and WI players - i also think harbajan and any mumbai/delhi crowd wud make fun of a black tamilian if it got down to it.

Pro Wrestling Fan said...

I second hawkeye. I still remember Vinod Kambli got booed by his own home crowd in Mumbai, being called "Kaalia", and what not?

Coming to the comment made by that man in Timblair.net, I think we are indeed a nation of dinner ruining telemarketers with engineering degrees. I've heard some of my call center "dudes" speak English and it's nothing short of pathetic, to say the least. They put on this ugly drawl which they think makes them sound like Americans, but unfortunately it doesn't sound that way. If I were to get interrupted by a bunch of these no-good English speakers every day, I would have probably come to that conclusion too.

Chenthil said...

Hawkeye - of course. India is a racist country, so that spills on to cricket field also, I am not refusing that. My point is the australian columnists just googling and writing about casteism in Indian cricket is as funny as Indians googling and writing about aborigines.

If we want to discuss the colour issue in India, it will open a pandora's box, which I would rather not do in this post. Suffice to say, being dark in colour myself, I have felt this discrimination even within Tamil Nadu, why go to Mumbai / Delhi.

Krishnan - that sentence was so true, that's why I linked it.

ashok said...

belated new year wishes chen...

Anonymous said...

Chenthil

I cannot forget that joke in the movie Indian. Goundar mani telling Senthil to call his son ``Aduppula Ventha sami” and not Aravindswami. Most of the jokes cracked by Goundarmani at the expense of Senthi (Dei Panni etc etc) border on colour. And ofcourse, they are very popular. Vivek is no exception as well. They, the actors would conveniently escape by saying that the Directors wanted it, it is part of business and that's how society is etc etc.

Anonymous said...

rambhaithe topic is gettin more coverage than wat is required. indeed it is an important issue . but there hardly somethin news channel can do the competition is so stiff that eyeballs have to be attracted with whatever news thats can be sensationalized