The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Madurai News : Reporter's Diary

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 24, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Madurai

Reporter's Diary

Regulating traffic in a city like Madurai is no doubt a daunting task for the police personnel.

Despite various road safety rules and regulations, many vehicle users tend to take `short-cuts,' violating the norms.

The commonest of such violations are jumping the red signal, ignoring one-way traffic rules and wrong parking.

The traffic constables at important junctions often have a tough time regulating vehicular movement, particularly during rush hours.

In some traffic islands, there is not much of a visibility on all sides.

For instance, at the traffic beat near Sethupati Higher Secondary School, the constable uses a rear-view mirror to have a glance at vehicles coming from behind. In Goripalayam, the policeman sits in one corner and depends on his colleagues positioned on all sides to signal timely change of signals.

With summer fast approaching, traffic management will only become tough and tedious for the police.

* * *

It will be painful for the man occupying a high position when the last day of the term is fast approaching. But, the Vice-Chancellor of the Madurai Kamaraj University, who is retiring on January 31, sets a different note saying that "everything is like a train journey and we have to get down when the station comes."

Putting it in practice, he has already prepared to leave the university campus, within hours on the same day of his retirement, to his native town, Udumalpet.

P.K. Ponnuswamy is vacating the VC quarters immediately as he says, "I follow certain principles. I did likewise when I was the VC of the Madras University. When I bought the ticket knowing that I have to get down, why should there be any feeling," he said at a press meet here.

For the VC, it is only back to his favourite pastime — books and literature.

During his three-year stint in the city, he wrote and published three books — two in Tamil and one in English. There is one more to come, he says as he happily packs his bags for his hometown.

* * *

The fourth round table conference of the Dalit Panthers of India held in the city on Saturday came with a political message, urging the Dalits to strive for political recognition.

On the flip side, it had some lighter moments for the audience.

The `Thappattam' staged by Dindigul Women Sakthi Group was a real crowd puller as it depicted the cultural art form. It seemed to fulfil expectations of the audience by providing the needed gusto with fast paced drumbeats and measured rhythmic steps.

It was followed by a `silambam' demonstration by a couple of girls.

* * *

While the cadres are the backbone of any political party, the top brass will look upon discipline as the strength of its cadre-base. If discipline is at stake, the high command of no party will remain a mute spectator.

The other day, at a function got up by a political party, a `spirited' cadre shouted slogans terming his leader as the future Chief Minister.

The crowd also cheered him initially. But, he did not stop his `cries' even after the speakers of the function started addressing the gathering.

Since, the worker continued to raise his voice, even as the party chief was delivering his speech, the other leaders had no other option but to see to that he was removed from the venue to put a full stop to `spirited cheers.'

* * *

There is no doubt that cricket has elbowed away all other games, going by the number of supporters for the willow game in the country.

But it has been the game of hockey, which caught the attention of world and etched the nation's name in the world sports map, when the Indian team consecutively won gold medals in Olympics.

However, the dwindling number of supporters for the game has, of late, taken the sheen out of hockey. Hence, as it had been done in the case of soccer, authorities have decided to organise premier hockey league pooling all hockey talents available in the country, and also some from foreign countries to attract the crowd, a la English county-cricket style.

What irks hockey fans though is: the advertisements for the hockey league, which has been telecast in many satellite channels.

The advertisement featured three cricketers — Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Sachin Tendulkar, voicing their support to the hockey league.

Even though the hockey think-tank's idea to use these cricketers as crowd pullers could be appreciated, what the ardent hockey buffs felt was it would have been better if they had used the services of great hockey players of yesteryears for the job.

* * *

(Contributions from S. Vijay Kumar, Shastry V. Mallady,
J. V. Siva Prasanna Kumar, M.R. Aravindan and T. Saravanan in Madurai)

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