MADURAI: Posters commemorating everything from birthdays to death anniversaries is commonplace in Tamil Nadu. One such curious specimen recently cropped up at SS Colony, where a poster commemorating a ‘brother’s’ first death anniversary drew a lot of eyeballs.
The banner, featuring the deceased’s photograph, remembers him as a warrior whose gaze alone could make villagers tremble. What is peculiar to the poster is the fact that memoriam is for a goat. Chinna (20), a resident of Ponmeni was the man behind the lament.
Chinna described his father Rajendran’s diary and his uncle, who reared goats and took them to fights around Madurai. Chinna used to accompany his uncle and on a trip to Thoppur met the subject of the poster. The 15-year-old boy, after buying a goat, noticed another active four-year-old kid of the Mayilambadi breed and ended up buying him too.
“I named him Krithik and took care of him myself. I used to take him for a swim in Madakulam Tank and one day on our way back, I spotted a goat fight,” said Chinna.
Mayilambadi breed of goats generally shy away from fights, but Chinna wanted to enter his young companion in these fights. They began training in the earnest with the help of his family and in 2011, Karthik and Chinna went for their first bout in Ramanathapuram.
This was to become the birth of a star. While the uncle’s goats all lost, Krithik won a prize and brought back a silver vessel. From 2011 to 2016, Keerthi was a regular winner at events. However, Keerthi’s success story ended on March 16 last year, when he passed away due to old age.