Cho Ramaswamy, currently the only political observer in Tamil Nadu talks about his views on the recent protests against Kushboo.
From Hindu’s Business Line –
“While I do not agree with what she has said, she is entitled to her views. Now those who are agitating against her have accused her of having defamed or maligned Tamil women. In her article she has not said a single word about Tamil Nadu or the women of Tamil Nadu. Her opinions were generally about women. What the agitators accuse of her saying is totally wrong. India Today has been publishing surveys again and again which claim to record the opinion of women of Tamil Nadu. And in these surveys they claim about 20-25 per cent of these women say they are for free sex or pre-marital sex. Now I don’t know whether this is truly their opinion or that of the person doing the survey.”
Coming down heavily on the serials aired by TV channels, Ramaswamy said these TV channels “regularly put on air serials which malign women in a very devastating manner. Nobody seems to care, perhaps because they are being telecast by Sun TV. So while neither India Today nor Sun TV has been targeted, Khushboo was chosen perhaps because she is a soft target; and they somehow wanted to claim a victory.”
Thats the way to go. I enjoy this man for this sheer objectivity in commenting !! Given the state of affairs, we need a dozen CHOs.
kirukkal.com 
18 responses to “Cho Ramaswamy, currently the only”
Kushboo could be shouted down.. But what about Craigslist?? The recently launched chennai portal now features all personals categories which Indian public uses in private and trashes in public – strictly platonic, men for men, women 4 women…..
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The real issue seems to hae started when Khushboo tried to corner Thangar Bachan at the Nadigar Sangam meeting about the fact that he had said that “actresses were strumpets …” or whatever it is that he said and then tried to link it to the fact that J who is a woman is also the chief minister of the state. Looks like she was trying to politicise the issue or at least that’s what I read in one of the Kazhugu, AAndhai or Theru Naai reports. Thangar, Thirumaavalavan etc were waiting for their chance and then the IT interview happened.
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Cho is a definition of how a critic should be and Thuglak is definition of the role media should play.
Cant Agree with you more Guru. We need dozen Cho’s in each and every state!
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Lazy,
Cho’s opinion always has a bias. I don’t think any mediaperson can ‘objectively’ report anything. It will be boring like hell. Cho’s success lies in his conviction. He hates Karunaninithi, has a soft corner for Jayalalitha and BJP/RSS and believes Rajinikanth can be a good politician.
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I guess I already made this comment elsewhere.
Poor Kushboo could have as well reacted (by saying all this) as Cho did.
But she did want to be “Roman” in a Pathetic “Rome” (and host those shows with all public acceptance) and so had gone for a public apology. IMO, she should not have given a damn for those mischieveous morons burning her effigies. But then I do perceive that i am asking for too much.
This is the price ppl pay for being popular, as the cliche goes.
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KrishLakshman is spot on. I started reading Thuglak few months back cuz of his spiritual article and now I almost read from cover to cover. Cho takes every opportunity to mock Manmohan Singh being used as a puppet but he’s quite subtle when it comes to puppet shows in BJP.
I was shocked when he advocated for dictatorship on NDTV – big fight as a better choice than current democracy. That’s someone just outta senses.
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Seriously
Cho has been always been critical of everything but then if he chooses to sympathise with BJP/RSS camp,then it is his opinion.He has even criticised them for whatever ruckus is happening and keeps mocking them.What we dont realise is this guy has been around for 40+years and if he is bashing karunanidhi then thats because he knows what K has done all these years and hence is a better knowledged person to comment on K’s issues.
I feel an objective magazine like Tughlaq is very important for our democracy and i just luv it but then my views on things matches a bit with cho’s and that is also one reason why i am supporting Cho.
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Objective ? From a Rajya Sabha BJP member ? No problem, I think objectivity is cliched beyong belief and Cho has made no bones about where his preferences are.
I was shocked too like Jacky when he advocated dictatorship on NDTV and that too in Tanglish with his comical getup – It’s pity that there is no one better than him to represent TN on TV – Cho is from the pre-NDTV era and his presentations are unpolished, rather emotional and he doesn’t seem to understand the difference between the fanboy crowd that gathers to hear him once a year in Narada Gana Sabha or Music Academy, and a nation wide TV audience. Tughlak is also about personality worship , though it might not be totally intentional. In the last forty years he hasn’t found one single person who can function at a peer level in his magazine. It’s all about Cho’s editorial, Cho’s questions and answers, Cho’s thoughts, Cho’s literary works and translations etc. Every time he introduces his staff on stage and I get the feeling that it is a total mom and pop show. Obviously the Tughlak has top notch talent like Satya and Savitri Kannan – but whatever the heck is going on with those guys ? The guy is strange mixture of conservatism and enlightened values. Some of the things that I don’t like about him are the knee jerk reaction to Human rights issues, always siding with the film industry, defending big industrialists no matter how wrong they are, mindless pro-americanism etc.
Having said that I would like to thank him for being a thorn in the flesh of the Kazhagams, for exposing them to be the unprincipled scoundrels that they are. There is a pleasing eclectism about his work and he is surely one of the most important Tamilians alive today.
KG
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I like the fact that Kushboo brought this issue to the masses. She might suffer temporarily, but I am sure there are 1000 girls/guys who have read her message and now will be careful. And I think this message would not have had the same effect if this had not been a controversy…
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Zero, this is not the first time he has talked about dictatorship for india. why not ЁЯЩВ
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I agree with CHO..if Tamil Nadu people shout against pre-marital sex, how come many Tamil movies in the recent times has been a big hit, to name a few..7G rainbow colony,Kanakandein and AAh AAh..is that alright because the girl died in the first movie or that it was an accident and she got married the next day as in the 2nd movie and what about “livin-in” in the third movie..I am not against any of these movies and I feel that that TN people should not be hypocritical…Mega-serials shown in TV have horrible storyline and I think lives were much better as in the 80s, when the public had only the DD for 2-3 hrs in a day with decent serials…gone are the days!! We as citizens of the great state have a responsibility to build a cultured nations,
If the censor board should be aginst showing smoking scenes on the TV or films, why not be against showing some awful TV channels like Fashion, or even some movie songs , pop songs, cheap filmi jokes!!
How to decide what is good for our younger generation…a strict censor board that will curb any scenes that is against the moral human behavior is required.
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Kupathotty Govindasaamee,
Wow!…that was a well articulated and unbiased commentary on cho.
‘The guy is a strange mixture of conservatism and enlightened values.’ – Best one.
I fully agree.
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@ kanmani:
if the censor board members r all 40+ ppl, how can they decide what’s good or bad for youngsters. ‘moral human behavior’ in their sense will not hold true for all.
generation gap will never cease to exist and we just have to learn to adapt to it. older generation trying to curb the rights and influence the thoughts of youngsters will become fuel to fire for the already rebellious youth.
the current generation is so smart that even b4 u think about installing netnanny to prevent ur children from watching porn, they wud have started writing computer code to bypass it.
@ everyone:
I wud like to know the definition for Tamil culture (for ur kind information, i’m very very very veri pidicha fanatic abt tamil and tamilnadu). Isn’t this the state which boasts of temples with all the nude statues, nude artwork, etc. Even though the sculptors knew that ppl from ages 1 to 80 will visit these places for worship, they had no shame in displaying them. My guess is atleast a few teenagers wud have shagged at home after watching these statues. Also there r lots of references in ancient tamil literature about prostitutes and sex and stuff. where was tamil culture then?
My opinion is that there’s nothing wrong with the tamil culture. It’s just that, suddenly(few decades back) tamilians or for the fact Indians became more conservative. There has been just a change in mentality of Indian. that’s all there is to it. talking abt culture here is B.S.
I can also put it in a way that ppl obsessed with the word ‘culture’ can understand:
When the Indian culture in which nudity and sex and prostitution and partner exchanges and orgies(have u seen the khajiraho sculptures where there r 5 guys standing in a queue and 2 girls give them a B.Job?) were a way of life, there must have emerged a transitional generation(predominantly conservative) which considered the culture offensive and was foregone by them to build what is called the ‘present tamil culture’ that everyone is fighting to save and make sure not even a slutty actress desecrates it.
My question is, why not we be the newage transitional generation in which cultural changes r taking place? when u can readily accept/embrace the changes that happened 4-5 centuries back even though u have no idea under what circumstances the changes took place, why r u so unnwilling to accept the changes taking place right now and u know under what circumstances(peer pressure/ westernization/ego,etc) they r taking place?.
On the lighter side, all we youngsters r trying to do is to take this country back to it’s original culture. Only difference is that in the old culture, they drank soma and got high. They had an orgy on some other day. In the new culture, we r doing both in the same night(drunk sex orgy). lol.
Just a drunken realization(can it get more ironic than this. lol) from my part ЁЯЩВ
P.S:
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Women terrorists are treated better than widows,women who can’t give birth to babies and social workers like Khushboo by people of Tamilnadu.I really feel bad and ashamed of being born and brought up in tamilnadu after hearing and seeing protests against Khushboo.
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Culture is a continuum. it is not written in stone. we human beings ‘e-volve’ …. alright?
Now trying to figure out something as right or wrong, based on ‘culture’ be it ancient or recent or whatever is like interpretation of the constitution. Constitutions are written by humans, we make mistakes, we change.
So quoting that in the ancient times we had all the s**t, one can think of, doesn’t validate anything. Ancient times life expectancy was 20s. (Thanks for the orgies and unruly lifestyle? maybe)
We go on to say things like…
Pre marital Sex is not new,
Prostitution is not new,
Vulgarity is not new,
same sex stuff is not new,
Panjali was the wife of five brothers.
Now, who said these are the right references to make? or wrong references. why bother giving references?
I think the only real issue that is globally disturbing has nothing to do with premarital sex. (Though I do feel that marriage itself is a mature evolution from unruly sex that pigs have) But if some of us wants to behave like pigs(meaning more animal instnct)thats their personal thing. But dragging others into it, and making this “as a matter of fact”, as if every women has premarital sex, that too from a person who is popular is very childish.
People should grow up, take responsibility, build better societies, and elevate the “existence experience” (not meaning ‘High’ here :p) of others.
I think the most disturbing fact in our societies is human rights violation. or pure violation of any sort. premarital sex is not yucky, one can maybe live with it. but rape…now that is not acceptable. or for that matter, deception, or taking the virginity of a female lightly when she takes it seriously.
I think the entire gravity of this episode is that we are opposed to the view that Kushboo seems to give..which is to give us a feeling that women have stopped caring about virginity. I dont think so, and even if it is, we need not go about trumpetting this, and disillusioning each and everyone, which could eventually lead to deception, violation and the whole enchilada.
Amen.
and oh, btw, we do need more Chos, He is like our own Letterman.
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@ G S
Is that an independent opinion u have stated or is it trying to answer someone else’s post?. If so please mention it.
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I feel that these politicians are making much ado abt nothing.In a country where there is widespread poverty I think politicians should be more concerned abt those issues which concern the people.The truth is that the people of TN don’t care abt khushboo’s comments,suhasini’s comments and so on.
PMK thinks they can win the election and reap political capital but the people of TN aren’t that stupid.
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{{PMK thinks they can win the election and reap political capital but the people of TN aren’t that stupid.}} – But in a different level they are! (just like the rest of India and sometime the whole world when it comes electing people)
Suresh
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