Tamil Nadu

‘Wall on the cat’: 'Stalin Pazhamozhigal' make a splash as leader mixes up proverbs

This past week, the DMK leader has mixed up some proverbs to reverse their meaning – and the internet Tamil nation has not missed them.

Written by : TNM Staff

Politics is serious business, but that doesn’t mean our leaders don’t give us enough material for humour every now and then. And the latest political humour to tickle the funny bone has come from DMK working president Stalin – who has had some slip ups during speeches more than once in the past week!

Speaking at the DMK Conference in Erode, Stalin decided to take a dig at ‘a new crop of politicians’ without naming them.

In what is widely believed to be a reference to Kamal Haasan, Stalin said, “Some people are waiting in line to get into politics! What is their self professed reason for starting a party? “I’m neither here, nor there,” they say. “I’m in the centre,” they say. Like a cat on the wall.”

Except, Stalin slipped up a little. Instead of saying “Mathil mel poonai” (cat of the wall), Stalin said “Poonai mel mathil” – which means wall on the cat.

In the same speech, Stalin then took on Rajinikanth – once again, without naming him. “And then there are others who claim there is a vacuum in politics,” Stalin said, referring to Rajini’s speech at MGR University in Chennai’s Maduravoyal on March 6.

Rajini had then said, “They ask why I didn't enter when Jayalalithaa was ruling. ‘Was it fear,’ they ask? I don't have to remind (you) what happened in 1996. Did I come into politics because of a vacuum? Yes. There is a vacuum...for a good leader. Jayalalithaa was a talented leader. Karunanidhi...even though he was not in power for 13 years, he held the party together. Tamil Nadu needs a leader and I have come to fill the vacuum.”

Taking a dig at the comment, Stalin said, “They are getting ready to ride imaginary horses. Some people are deliberately trying to create an smokescreen that there is a vacuum in Tamil Nadu politics.”

“But it is scientific that a vacuum is filled as soon as it is created,” he said in Tamil.

Reiterating the statement in English, Stalin made another slip-up. “A vacuum is filed as it is cried,” he said, and immediately corrected the statement. “A vacuum is filled as it is created,” he said.

But the two gaffes in the speech were picked up by people online, who decided to take the leader’s case a little. Especially since the slip-ups came on the back of another one, last week.

In a video that is being circulated online, Stalin in a speech quotes a Tamil proverb that means recklessness comes before destruction, comparing the scenario to the sound of a bell around an elephant’s neck that announces its arrival.

Except, he ended up saying the opposite: “Yaanai varum munne, mani osai varum pinne,” he said, meaning the elephant comes first, and the sound of the bell comes later.

The slip-up had quickly catapulted him to Twitter fame, with people starting to put our funny messages with #ஸ்டாலின்_பழமொழிகள் (#Stalin_Pazhamozhigal, or Stalin Proverbs.)

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