Jayalalithaa - A few thoughts

I came to know of Jayalalithaa through an election poster from 1996. Those were the days without extensive internet and TV coverage and election propaganda happened through posters and door to door campaigning. Our house had a poster too "Sudukaatu kottakayil surandum peigalai vidamaatten viratti adippen" it said and it had a funny image of two women with ghostly bodies . The one who wore her Saree in a super weird way was Jayalalithaa I was told . That election , people were not rooting for her. My entire street and household was rooting for the DMK + TMC combine as was Rajinikanth and as was I . I was happy when she lost horribly because my family and friends were happy. That was all I knew of her and politics and the political history of my state as a 9 year old.

Come 2001 , my opinions had changed. I was a left leaning teenager trying to understand the dravidian movement. In the 5 years that had gone by , I had seen most of her movies , had come to understand the political climate in the state and had developed a reluctant admiration for her when she played a masterstroke and engineered a no confidence motion against the ruling coalition party. During that April , all that the Tamil magazines would speak of is about the various VIPs who flew in from Delhi to meet Amma . She was the diva of the season and rightly so. 

I hated the her love for sycophancy and couldn't quite understand the mass hysteria exhibited by her followers when something eventful or unfavorable happened to her. But the one thing I clearly understood was that she had immense grit , self-confidence and courage. It was remarkable for a woman who was an actress by profession and an Iyengar by birth to lead a dravidian party in a chauvinistic landscape and command absolute obedience  from cadres. She was an example and a role model for an able administrator and absolute tyrant. She made me believe that gender , profession and cultural identity was not a barrier for anything or anyone you wanted to become and that immense self belief , determination and handwork was all that you needed. She also made me hate her for introducing wide spread corruption in the system and her "fall at my feet" brand of reward structure.

Thus in 2006 and 2011 , I voted for her , even when I did not agree with her policies or politics . To me she was a woman who was PM material and I wanted to do my little bit in helping her achieve that . She was corrupt , a fact I will not deny but she was also knowledgable and efficient as an administrator. She was also shrouded in mystery and thus was a super interesting subject to study. But  as a sum of parts , she was a woman who lived and died fighting , rising like the phoenix time and again proving that gender was never a handicap and it is this woman that I will miss.

Rest in peace Jayalalitha Jayaraman . I wish and pray for history to treat you kindly where life did not.