His father, whose name is a mountain and the 'R' in the middle of his name has been long- lost, must have listened to the warning by his 'latter stage, elder son'. Or else the father would not have said that the former dictator of the U.S.S.R, who founded his youth wing in the town of Lord Krishna at Chennai, would be punished by this latter stage elder son, for the dictator insulted the 'Tamil people' by bringing a ban on the public celebration of this elder son's 'birthday' this year. By saying so, what the father tried to establish was that all Tamils were worshipers of his elder son.
His father, whose name is a mountain and the 'R' in the middle of his name has been long- lost, must have listened to the warning by his 'latter stage, elder son'. Or else the father would not have said that the former dictator of the U.S.S.R, who founded his youth wing in the town of Lord Krishna at Chennai, would be punished by this latter stage elder son, for the dictator insulted the 'Tamil people' by bringing a ban on the public celebration of this elder son's 'birthday' this year. By saying so, what the father tried to establish was that all Tamils were worshipers of his elder son.
But in contrast, his elder son hardly finds any place in the social life of ancient Tamils, since there are no references anywhere to him in the entire corpus of classical Sangam literature. Only the later pieces of Bhakti literature, particularly, the Shaivite poet Gnanasambanthar’s version of Tevaram, informs that he was born to his father and mother after the couple ‘took’ their respective avatars of a male and a female elephant.
Just after a day or two from this elder son's 'birthday' it's time we remembered a true incident held in the city that disproved his omnipotence.
When a large number of wild elephants once frequently met their doom within two weeks across Coimbatore, a city-based youth got a 'Yagna' performed in the name of the 'r- lost' father's latter stage son to avert such elephant deaths in the future.
However, as learned from the incident, the elder son seemed rather a ‘destroyer’ than a ‘savior’ since an elephant died within a day after the 'Yagna'.
When this writer asked the man, who arranged the yagna about the controversy, he said:
“The pachyderm would not have died, but for a mistake done in the yagna. As a person who initiated the ceremony, it is I who ought to have poured the offerings like apples and bananas in the holy fire. Instead, with one of the priests doing it, the spell did not work and an elephant died after being hit by a train at Walayar the next day morning”
Though worshipers of this elder son hardly doubt his goodness, popular historians and philosophers of India are ready with his origin as an evil incarnate.
But now, with the elder son being prominent here, even a greengrocer scribbles the 'Suzhi’ named after him before writing his bill on a torn piece of paper. However, the symbol is in no way connected with the elder son, for it was used by writers in the bygone era for checking and choosing the good and strong pieces of palm leaf which were fit enough to write the scripts on them.
Eminent Marxist philosopher Debi Prasad Chattopadyaya, in his book Lokayata, traces the elder son's history and opines that he was rather a catastrophe incarnate in the early days and not the later period one who is believed to bestow success’.
Superstitions do not exempt even certain journalists.
It was a time when the Sri Lankan war against Tamils came to an end. A discussion on the ethnic war was seriously going on between the journalists in their office canteen. One among them, an ‘experienced’ reporter of a Tamil daily, chipped in:
“I used to advise supporters of Tamil Eeezham to perform regular poojas to the deity Hanuman. Had they done so, LTTE chief Prabhakaran would never have been killed by the Sri Lankan army! ”