Do not ban anything

I have a soft corner for Kamal Hassan. I get hints of a progressive mind even given how deftly he hides behind all those make up tricks he shows off in his movies.

I remember to have read many years ago about his musing that he should have married his former wife (which one you ask? Sarika) after the latter gave birth to her second daughter (both with Kamal Hassan). To put it another way, why Sarika and he should have avoided having a second child, after getting married (They could have gone to Las Vegas, gotten a divorce, have the second baby, and then get married again!).

His logic was, by getting married between their two children, the first one, in the eyes of the world (about which he seems not to care at all) would be illegitimate, and the second, legitimate. He disliked this discrimination between the two. That sounded quite logical and resembled some of the arguments I had advanced about marriages and children in some other context. So, some kind of kinship (one way, to be sure) between us was established.

But that soft corner turned quite rigid in the aftermath of his support for the recent bull-taming stir in Tamil Nadu. Lest I be misunderstood, I quickly add the following disclaimer: I am not taking sides on this issue, not at all.

However, till only about two days ago, I was wondering why Kamal was jumping into this fray. It is not as if he upholds Tamil culture, in all its manifestations, sincerely and so vigorously. Then came the blinding flash, yet clarifying the “why” of his position.

Kamal does not want anything to be banned. And, the example he gave was about banning movies, which is bad; ergo, banning Jallikattu is bad. Then, why is he not raising his voice against child marriage ban, Sati ban ...

This is what turned me off that man’s chain of thinking. Equating censorship of movies and banning Jallikattu?

What exactly is the free speech that Jallikattu upholds? I ain’t got a clue. To be cynical, Kamal was using this stir to validate his position on (which must at least in part be driven by profit motives) mob censorship after the authorities have okayed a movie.

The hardened corner is not diamond hard. If somehow I get to hear a satisfactory explanation from him on this point, I would perhaps turn a softie.

But, I know Kamal Hassan would not care about this rant from a nonentity and a self-proclaimed nonexpert.

Raghuram Ekambaram