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Jobless?

The virulent protests by some political parties of Tamil Nadu against actor Kushboo's remarks on pre-marital sex, and actor Suhasini's support for her show how jobless they are. When there are many issues that warrant their urgent attention, it is shameful that they should be giving prominence to something said in an interview to the media.

R. Jayalakshmi,
Chennai

Those who argue for Kushboo and Suhasini in the name of freedom of expression will do well to remember this freedom has to be exercised with a little moderation and without hurting the sentiments of others.

R. Narasimhan,
Chennai

Kushboo's comments were ill-timed and inapt. Instead of arguing on the different yardsticks for men and women, let us advocate that pre-marital sex per se is undesirable and runs contrary to Indian culture.

G.V.K. Durga Ravi,
Muscat

India's age-old culture is based on chastity. One cannot suddenly infuse western elements into it in the name of civilisation and modernism. Opposition to Kushboo's remarks is quite right. In the Indian context, open talk on sex is undesirable. At the same time, despicable forms of protest will achieve nothing.

A. Akbar Sheriff,
Tiruchi, T.N.

DMK chief M. Karunanidhi has introduced a Brahmin-non-Brahmin component to the issue. The Dravidian movement has been based all along on the premise that the upper castes, particularly Brahmins, have oppressed the others for ages. If Mr. Karunanidhi believes it to be relevant even today, he should do some soul-searching. The community has struggled for over 40 years in Tamil Nadu and it is only now that the younger generation is beginning to find opportunities to prosper. It is not fair to revive the issue.

C.S. Baskar,
Chennai

It is difficult to understand how all social ills can be attributed to one community. The Brahmins have always been in a minuscule minority. They could not have possibly influenced the vast Hindu society. They performed the role assigned to them by the rest of society. Blaming them for everything is akin to western societies attributing social imbalances to the Jewish community.

H.N. Ramakrishna,
Bangalore

Mr. Karunanidhi is reported to have asked whether those who quote Periyar accept all he did, including smashing of Vinayaka idols. This is strange logic at its worst. His question can be in fact addressed to him thus: When you agree with all that Periyar said and did, why not endorse the views of Kushboo that are not very different from those of Periyar?

T.S. Pattabhi Raman,
Coimbatore

The following words of Jawaharlal Nehru may be of some help in understanding what culture is all about. "Culture and civilisation are difficult to define ... but among the many things that culture includes are certainly restraint over oneself and consideration for others." No culture can remain static or fossilised; it has to necessarily change according to times.

D. Samuel Lawrence,
Madurai, T.N.

In Shakespeare's The Tempest, Caliban says: "You taught me language, and my profit on't is, I know how to curse." The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech to every citizen and the result is everyone knows how to abuse it.

B. Gunabalan,
Chennai

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