If the Sangam epoch symbolised the purity of Tamil language and culture, it was the epoch of the Chola kingdom that symbolised the `golden era`.The zenith of Tamil power when the military and naval might of the Chola kingdom subjugated many parts of south east Asia.

It is interesting to note the emergence of a national flag among the Tamils. Tamils look up to the tiger flag as one capable of resisting the lion flag. The Jaffna Tamil Kingdom which existed for centuries in Lanka had a flag whose main feature was a seated recumbent bull.

The Tamil resistance movement did not choose this flag as a bull could not be expected to stand up to a marauding lion. The Chola kingdom of Tamils in South India had a tiger flag. There is lot of symbolism in the change over from a bull to a tiger. When the lion was attacking the Tamils for about two decades, the peaceful law-abiding Tamils were behaving like a cow/bull. A realization that they have to behave like a tiger occurred to few Tamils in the seventies. This view is shared by a vast number of Tamils now.

The marauding lion of yore is complaining that the newly emerging prowling tiger is a terrorist. Just because an ethnic community has forced the marauding lion to be the central figure in the national flag of a State and behave likewise against another ethnic community in that State, the international community should not turn a blind eye to what goes on and decide that an established State however evil and cruel it may be, it has to be defended. If the lion flag does not appear to be a terrorist flag, how could anybody say that the tiger flag is a terrorist flag?

If a really united peaceful country for the whole island were to emerge out of the tragic events, a new national flag transcending the marauding lion and the prowling tiger may have to be devised.