As a pure Coimbatoreite and being from Tamil Nadu, I always like about this sport for its roots back to the old traditional sport. Yes - I am talking about Jallikattu sport in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. This Jallikattu sport has been there for more than thousands of years ago.
To know offtrack about Coimbatore Jallikattu - check out Wikipedia article for
Jallikattu.
There is a great collection by a tourist photographer oochappan, about whom I have written more about in a previous article. Check out his photos about Alanganallur photos for jallikattu. You will get every snapshot of it. Check out
oochappan's Jallikattu coverage.
Another blog-mate has written an article about Jallikattu, which gives the blogger's
experience about Jallikattu. That is true, even many average Coimbatoreite might not have seen Jallikattu in Alanganallur.
I have seen personally only once in Alanganallur inside the village. It was an awesome and scary experience. Also,
my coimbatore brother has written about our experience previously.
Also, my coimbatore brother has written about our
Coimbatore Pongal experience in our Coimbatore Home.
The point I am getting to is related to the
video from NDTV. Media is all over being against Jallikattu and trying to stop this sport. I know this Jallikattu sport angers lot of Animal Lovers.
There are many foreigners coming to Coimbatore to view this sport. There is good revenue out of this sport to this village and to Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu and to India.
On top of all these, this is a very old tradition being continued and being practised for thousands of years. These are some of the actions which will take away the real flavour of Coimbatore. Do we want to loose the tradition of Coimbatore?
Every sport is dangerous and risky - do we stop playing those? There are even more adventurous and dangerous sports than this. Do we stop those sports? We still play those right?
I know one or two persons get killed and 30 or so people get injured. We cannot stop the sport for that. In fact, these days for getting the prize in this game has been eased out. If you hang with the bull in the bull fight, that is good enough. You don't have to completely bring down the bull.
Still it is being played in some parts of Spain and Mexico. Do they stop it? Some developed countries are still following adventurous sports and following tradition. Why do we go away from our tradition and adapt to western culture! Let us stick to our originality, we can reach top!!
Please do not stop this sport and that means you are taking away the flavor of Coimbatore and its tradition. I am thinking stopping/banning Jallikattu sport is equivalent to the fact of bringing down Coimbatore Meenakshi Temple, thinking that you can use the space in a better way in the centre of the town. Would you agree for that?
