ever heard of Nose cut?!
Ever heard of ‘nose cut‘? It’s an English phrase that was not known to English! (I checked, it drew a blank).
Well, it’s actually a Tamil phrase with no Tamil words!! Sounds even more bizzare isn’t it? It actually refers to giving back an insult (or retort) to a high sounding person. Well used in Madurai & most parts of Tamilnadu.
Found a reference on ‘nose cut‘ in an unofficial ‘Dictionary of Indian English‘ http://snipurl.com/nosecut [www_vsubhash_com].
So how come such a unique phrase came into use? It was attributed to the ‘Mysore – Madurai war‘ at the fag end of ‘Thirumalai Naick‘ period, which was finally won by Madurai with vital support from Sethu Nadu (Ramanathapuram).
In this war, the Mysore King ordered to cut the noses of enemies as they advance. And the Madurai army retaliated in the same way!! But it certainly was not funny as it sounds. Read about the full history of the war here http://snipurl.com/nosewar [www_visvacomplex_com] . It also has an interesting map of south India during 17th Century. (The article was written by Dr.S.Jayabarathi, a renowned scholar on Archeology & Tamil Literature)
The article had interesting points such as Mysore rulers ‘exhort southern rulers by holding back Kaveri waters‘ in 14th – 17th century period. So River Cauvery’s part in politics have a long history.
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Interesting and informative… I was thinking that it had something to do with Soorpanaka’s nose cut.
And cauvery dispute, its going to haunt us for centuries …
Very interesting ! I didnt know this part of history. Nor did i know that ‘Nose Cut’ was something peculiar to Madurai !
Hmm. Interesting stuff indeed !