Former Union Minister and erstwhile DMK strongman M.K. Alagiri is so fond of the late actor Sivaji Ganesan that he made efforts to install his life-size statue near Madurai district court complex.
Since he was the south zone organising secretary during the DMK rule, birth anniversaries of Sivaji were organised in a grand manner with participation of Kollywood glitterati. At one such anniversary function, Mr. Alagiri said, “I used to call him (Sivaji) Chithappa, and whenever I met him, I used to chat about his films and songs.”
“My wish is to garland his statue every day with a strand of jasmine flowers,” he said.
Translating his wish into reality, one of his loyalists started garlanding the Sivaji statue daily from the very next day, much to the bemusement of passersby.
But after Mr. Alagiri quit his minister post, and was removed from the party, the “daily jasmine garlands” also vanished from Sivaji's statue, a fan of the actor said at a recent birth anniversary celebration.
At a recent event organised in a Madurai college, a senior lawyer of Madras High Court who addressed the students had an extremely interactive talk. He peppered his talk with questions to which two students were able to give the right answers. At the end of his talk, he said that the students who answered well will get a small prize from the college.
However, when he threw the floor open for questions, he was met with a deafening silence with the students less than eager to ask questions. “Now, I will give a prize to anyone who asks me a question based on my talk,” he announced, and hands of students shot up in the air, waiting for their turn to question him. Quite an idea to get students to interact!
CONTRIBUTED BY
L. SRIKRISHNA
AND S POORVAJA
