Thennarasu’s oratorical flourish bowls House over

CHENNAI: State Tamil Development Minister Thangam Thennarasu’s oratorical flourish in Tamil was a godsend to an Assembly habitually drenched in exhausting sycophancy. In an era when MLAs leave listeners silently fuming in frustration, Thennarasu on Thursday bowled over the House with his vast repository of Tamil literature. Replying to a debate on demand for grants for his department, the minister started from over a two-millennium-old Tholkappiyam and fluidly moved to Silapathigaram and Thevaram like a hot knife on butter before winding up the opulent speech with Bharathiyar and Bharathidasan. He unlocked his arsenal of classical Tamil poetry, going extempore all the while, to explain how the vocabulary of the classical language has remained unchanged even after 2,000 years. The minister, said to be well versed in even reading archaeological inscriptions, intonated the verses, at least half a dozen lines each from all aforesaid classic Tamil works, during a marathon replying session that lasted nearly an hour, that too post-lunch. Despite enduring long speeches, the House did not wink a moment as the informed industries minister elucidated the longevity of Tamil, which, he said, remained impermeable to major adulteration unlike other languages. So engrossing was the speech that not one MLA present in the House cared not to commend his speech, more so after the Assembly overshot the deadline by an hour. The minister’s speech also offered a rare glimpse of the oratorical swagger unique to the Dravidian leaders once.

— Karthikeyan K, Chennai