Muttiah Muralitharan's compelling life story, lost in the fog of illogic
The HinduOccasionally, Muttiah Muralitharan has spoken of the anti-Tamil pogrom in 1977 when Sinhalese mobs ran a blade 12 inches across his father’s back, then burned down the family’s biscuit factory on the outskirts of the hill capital of Kandy, Sri Lanka. The suggestion from Murali is that if he can forgive this heinous act of racial violence and go on to become one of Sri Lanka’s most celebrated figures, forgiveness should be beyond no one. More than 150 years into life on the island, Malayaha Tamils remain among the nation’s most impoverished ethnic groups, with most estate workers earning less than 800 rupees a day. Perhaps we should not be surprised that in casting Murali as a generic Sri Lankan Tamil, with no mention of his particular community, his harshest critics have stumbled into the same mire of illogic that inflamed the Sinhalese who attacked central hill-country Tamils over separatist agitations in the north and east. Editorial | Heckler’s veto: On Vijay Sethupathi's withdrawal from Muralitharan biopic 800 Gripping script If the film is canned following Sethupathi’s exit, one of sport’s most compelling stories will go untold on screen.
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Writer of Muralitharan biopic: ‘There are shades of grey in 800'
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