Vacuum

For many of us who have lived in Chennai, (former) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's demise is something that has deeply affected us. Especially women residents of her State. I see that in the response of a few non-Tamil former colleagues of mine. If Hillary gave American women the hope they can aspire to be President too, Jaya had already lived that dream for many Indian women. Of all our women chief ministers across India, she has been the most gutsy, sane, intelligent and yet a tragedy queen.  While her political career saw her come up again and again like a phoenix, her vulnerability as a human is most reflected in her personal life. From having to give up studies to pursue a career in films against her will to the heroes in her screen and personal lives who failed her to the repeated challenges she faced in her political career to the willingness to be under the grip of a woman companion who now seems to have taken charge of her personal and political inheritance, we see a vulnerable, volatile and lonely woman who passed away just when she was beginning to implement many populist measures.

We may have smirked as we saw her huge picture (almost blocking the driver's view of the road) on the small buses that traversed the inner lanes giving autos a run for their money, on the Amma brand water bottles, on schoolbags and laptops donated to school children, yet it must have meant a lot to those who benefited from those schemes. The Amma canteens and markets are a hit giving highly subsidised food and vegetables, though I have heard complaints like the rice used can give one a stomach ache or vegetables not being available. The free monthly ration of 20/30 kg rice followed by the Dravidian parties seemed a wasteful expenditure considering that some BPL families sold it off to hotels and elsewhere for a profit. I have had two of my local maids in Chennai selling me raw rice (which I used for appam) at Rs 20 -30 a kg; ditto about sugar often at a rupee or two less than the market price. Anything that comes free is undervalued and it would be better to give subsidies for the poor.

I have not had the privilege of seeing her in my two-decade long stay in Chennai; I only have vague memories of being stopped like the rest of the road users when her convoy passed a route  in one of her earlier and more ostentatious stints as CM. And the road to her Poes Garden house seemed a hallowed and inaccessible pathway with police guarding the route. In contrast was Karunanidhi's Gopalapuram residence which we passed when the company clinic was located in its vicinity. 

In her latest tenure, my only sore point with her was her decision to turn the new Assembly complex built at over 100 crores by the DMK government into a government hospital. Working in a building bang opposite the complex, it pained to see an impressive structure being allowed to decay. 

Jaya's attempt to scrap the mediocre Samacheer Kalvi syllabus and reinstate the matriculation board syllabus came to nought owing to the High Court's intervention. I still hoped she would do something about it at some point.

As friends and foes alike paid rich tributes to her and the country accorded her a grand state funeral witnessed by national and state leaders, we realise a little belatedly that there would be none like her in the near future in Tamil Nadu or India - bold, beautiful, brainy yet imperious, mercurial and insecure.