Periyar - the source of his strength

Periyar

I finally got to see the movie about the most famous and controversial personality in the history of Tamil politics. Periyar, is indeed a great movie, with a job well done by actors Sathyaraj and Kushboo, directed by Gnanarajasekaran and music by Vidhyasagar.


Only when I saw the movie, did I understand the background that has been the basis of making Periyar what he was - a source of inspiration and support for all his intensity and actions. Not many may be aware that he grew up listening to Sanskrit chants and mantras, arranged at home by his devout Naicker parents.


The movie shows how the angry young man was driven out of the house by his father when the public complained to him about the son's iconoclastic activities. He then went to Hyderabad and joined a Brahmin twosome to Kashi. In Kashi he has a dip in the holy Ganga - a river that has inspired many a human who has turned a saint on the Indian soil. He has a small stint in a Mutt where he was invited to do some work and promised a meal a day. And what happened after his return to Erode is history. But his innate capacity to organise, question authority, to speak convincingly on issues close to his heart and be his own self at all times have all been a sequel to the divine inspiration that turn of circumstances chanced to give Periyar E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker. After all, both the theist and atheist fight about god and no god from the very consciousness of their being which is God!