The controversial bull isn’t just the star of Jallikattu. The pedigree bull multi-tasks and shares its pride of place with roosters and pigeons. This becomes evident as you enter the Kongu region in western Tamil Nadu. “We are doubly agitated over the ban,” says an engineering student at Mahalingapuram in Pollachi town. “We need twice as many Kangayam bulls. We don’t race single bulls. We do ‘Rekla race’ with carts drawn by the pedigree bulls in pairs. This is yet another ‘veera vilayatu’ (adventure sport),” his companion explains. They are part of a 3,000-strong mostly student crowd doing a Marina here in these landlocked parts bordering Kerala. A bandh is on, and school kids and parents have joined the holiday crowd. “All are welcome except the politician.” Political parties are desperately photoshopping the bull image into hoardings, only to invite measured vandalism. Faces of many venerable leaders have been torn off. “We have had Tamil ministers at the Centre almost without a break, from the Dravidian parties included. AIADMK is the third largest contingent in Parliament now. No one does anything when Tamil culture is threatened. Can’t we breed our own bulls and roosters? They are far superior to the imported breed of Jersey cattle and broiler chicken imposed on the market.” “Look at these policemen. They are happy we are protesting most peacefully and they are friendly. They are Tamil, too.” The T-word is on every lip. And, 20-year-olds are seamlessly leapfrogging to the not-so-recent past of the anti-Hindi agitation, vintage 1965. “That was the last time pure student power hit the streets. It is happening now after all these years. We are staying on here 24x7 till there is a permanent okay to our traditional sports. Not just a temporary relief on jallikattu to save ministerial faces.” Much organisation and instant indoctrination have happened. Over WhatsApp, Facebook. In a freshly whitewashed and thoroughly rural cluster in Vadaikipalayam village, you find men talking and texting on cellphones and women joining the conversation. Ranga Raj, the Panchayat president, pulls out his overused Samsung handset to show pictures of cocks and pigeons he breeds. “For what else? Our traditional village sports, cock fighting and flying pigeons,” he says. “Again, for what else? Betting. What is wrong with that? Horse race is legal. And everyone knows what they do in cricket.” Raj is very much part of Pollachi’s party-averse protest group because he was elected to the Panchayat as an independent. “Can the courts and PETA (People for The Ethical Treatment of Animals) stop all of that? Why are they singling out the Tamil culture?” You leave the offended Tamil culture with a singular image that sums up a lot. A wayside hand-drawn poster mounted on a board made out of recycled packing material, perched above wire mesh cages used to transport the very broiler chicken the protesters shun. Day Five and the agitation has lost neither momentum nor innocence.
