cat and mouse

the grand old man and his grand nephews continue to play the cat and mouse game.

Like a bolt from blue, the old man wrote a cover story in his party organ today lamenting the betrayal of two little boys who used to walk with him holding his hand from the time he was chief minister for the first time.

his grouse is that the brothers continue to tarnish the image of his party. the latest episodes being the near total recast of the campus violence near the gate of the grand old government law college in the high court premises and the targetting of none other than the dalit minister who has come as a replacement of the younger brother and escaping unscathed in a supposedly huge telecom scam with navika going back to what she was doing late last century, pulling out documents from DoT.

As usual, the old man had written the piece the morning before and stayed at the daily's office till noon proof reading the copy. No one is sure why he chose to write the piece titled: `kodiya vethanai - kumurum nenjam' roughly translated by our political correspondent as `cruel agony - anguished heart'. Elaborating how the Maran's cheated by sharing only 100 crore from sun's shares, the old man gave a clean chit to his elder son in the attack on the office of a daily owned by the brothers in temple town killing three and signed off uncharacteristically by releasing pictures of broken walls, windows and dirty toilet left behind by the brothers when the left the party headquarters to move into a new office for the number one television channel of tamils for the first time since its launch decades ago.

It was an incomplete article and everyone expected the old man to follow it up with a second part. Meanwhile, the elder brother, the media baron who shies away from media, issued a statement through his younger one, pleading innocence, accusing a few in the DMK camp, read azhagiri and arcot veerasamy, of pushing him to write such malicious article tarnishing the maran pride.

As the blabber-mouthed younger maran told a motely gang of media, the statement was self-explanatory. It told the old man that it was him who asked them to buy the daily, whose survey that threw marans out of the first family, as the party needed a mouth-piece. Stating that he was willing to sustain crores as loss, the elder brother reminded that the daily, however, will never be a mouth-piece to be a profitable venture in future. The shrewd man he is, kala has not said anything about the origins of sun satellite channel, the bete-noire of the tamils. Sometime back, when someone asked the elder brother if his channel was floated from the funds of the party, he jumped to his feet and before the reporter could come back to his office, he had called up the paper's chairman. The story was killed and the bureau-chief pulled up for his mis-chief!

The statement shows that the brothers are yet at work in fueling fire within the first family. According to it, the survey to the political heir of the old man was published thinking that he will be happy as his smiling son got the lion's share of votes (followed by others - read as the younger brother).

When the government bus was burnt in the temple town, a phone call from chennai, perhaps the duke of darkness, told the agitators to attack the daily office if the daily had carried the survey and not target government property. The elder brother also states that if the old man had wanted the cabinet post in the centre, the younger would have resigned from office immediately, thus indirectly bringing in the sister into the picture as well. It shows that the brothers are at it again, and unrelenting. The media savvy younger one was not interested in answering questions.

``do you want a controversy?'' he said when asked what next before disappearing through the front door of his white-washed house by the riverside in the poshest locality in the city.

Guess, what the old man is doing. he will be scratching his fertile brain to write a fitting reply sooner or later. while the party is intact, the image of the first family has taken a severe beating in the feud that involves the nephews.

think of what is in store when the silent war waged by the old man's sons spills out into the open. there could be lawlessness and violence within the party. as my ex-boss said this is a party with an inner democracy.

Till the sons fight, the old man and his nephews can continue playing cat and mouse as both still think, even if it is slightly, that they need each other. Of course, you can't expect politics and business to have mutual respect. Both play the game, dirty.