(Jayalalithaa 1948-2016)
On 4th November, eminent painter, Shibu Natesan
and myself were in Tanjavur, one of the richest districts in Tamil Nadu and we
were staying that the Tamil Nadu Tourism Guest House situated a couple of kilometres
from the famous Brihadeeswara Temple, visiting it was our purpose of being
there. The guest house premises suddenly came to a flurry of activities, as an
unexpected high tide at a sea shore, and we could see hoards of politicians
clad in white and the hall mark towels around their shoulders were busying
around and huddling up in each corner to discuss something. I noticed the flags
tied to the cars in which they came; the black and red flags with the picture
of MGR right in the middle (or is it that of Periyar?). The scene resembled a
scene from a typical Tamil movie which has ample amount of political feuds
portrayed to add effect to the heroic retribution towards the end of the
narrative. Tamil Nadu cannot survive without its melodramatic politics and its
manipulative leaders.
We looked at each
other and we knew the gravity of the situation. The activities pointed towards
one thing: Puratchi Talaivar Amma, Jayalalithaa’s post-life political scenario in
Tamil Nadu. O.Panneerselvam, the party General Secretary had already been
appointed as the caretaker of the government with Jayalalithaa’s name still
remaining as the Chief Minister of the state. When we were there she had been
in the Apollo Hospitals in Chennai for more than a month. We thought of pushing
ourselves out of Tamil Nadu for the fear of getting trapped in the mayhem and
all hell that would break loose in the streets of Tamil Nadu, god forbid, had
it all those activities been indicating the demise of Jayalalithaa. Tamilians
are famous for their unbridled expression of grief at the death of their
political leaders; they could immolate themselves, vandalise the streets, shops,
business establishment, vehicles and cry aloud. Unlike in many other parts of
the world, street vandalism is not a sporadic outbreak of lawlessness in Tamil
Nadu; violence post-dead of their beloved leaders is a way of expressing their
grief because in Tamil Nadu both politics and films are emotional entities, not
two separate social phenomenon to be left to the people involved.
(Jayalalithaa)
What makes Tamil Nadu politics so special is the corporeal involvement
of people with both politics and cinema. The relationship is visceral, guttural
and sanguine, showing its inability to transcend itself to the higher planes of
diplomacy and aesthetics. MGR’s death had caused in earlier in 1987. That was
when Jayalalithaa was pushed down from the vehicle carrying her beloved leader’s
dead body and it was then she made a silent vow to herself that she was going
to be the next queen and king maker at times in the state as well as national
politics. Perhaps, Jayalalithaa might have forgotten everything the day she was
admitted to the hospital; languishing between consciousness, delirium, dream
and the visions of the other world, if she had asked for anything must have
been her own deliverance from the world and the machines that were going into
her innards through various bodily openings. The dead and the dying are less
concerned with the lives of the people who are living; living is confusion and
death is clarity and Jayalalithaa had almost reached that clarity a couple of
months back and I am sure she never wanted to return to confusion.
During those five days that we had spent in Tamil Nadu,
visiting the exquisite temples from the medieval period, I noticed how the
iconography of Jayalalithaa had changed over a period of time. When I was
travelling in Tamil Nadu fifteen years back, in all the posters and hoardings
she was shown with a gown which covered from upper torso to the waist level,
giving her a sort of asexual appearance. There had been speculations about her
upper body, which once had disturbed many a young man out of his sleep. The erstwhile
tinsel town sexy heroine no longer wanted her to be seen a sex siren who could
dance her way into the lives of men. Despite all her efforts, Jayalalitha had
exactly done the same in the case of her mentor and boy friend,
M.G.Ramachandran, the reigning superstar of Tollywood in 1950, 60s and 70s.
Jayalalithaa through teenager arrogance challenged the macho of MGR (which was
already sagging at different levels while his political fortune was on the
rise) and he had no other way that accepting her as his muse and girl friend,
ruffling many feathers but with his superstardom and political influence MGR
could keep all rumours under check.
(Jayalalithaa in one of her movies)
This time, Jayalalitha, acquitted by the court of all cases
pertaining to the accumulation of disproportionate wealth, was safely back on
the throne and even had made a circular that would make everyone both in the
State Assembly and elsewhere address her only as ‘Amma’, not by name. A
conscious construction of this Amma image however had its journey through rough
roads. The flex hoardings and the political posters all over Tamil Nadu now
showed a Jayalalitha, without her special mantle (of course she had taken it
off a few years back) and a highly touched up and younger looking Jayalalithaa
had taken the central position. The full body length pictures were carefully
avoided, instead the bust form was projected. The typical raising of her right
hand or the typical folding of her palms in salutation to the people had been
removed. It was just a photograph exuding a benevolent authority. What
surprised me were the fairness of the face and the redness of the lips. In some
of the photographs, a few strands of white hairs were shown along the hairline
across her forehead and in some other photographs the white hairs were
completely removed. She was shown mostly in a blue sari, with some prints on
it, but clearly giving a message of her shedding the image of someone hoarding
thousands of silk saris. Her jewellery looked sparse. The most important thing
in those posters was the presence of the loosening skins just below her chin,
especially on the right side of her face. Jayalalithaa whose dimples, plump
cheeks and double chin, defining her hagiographic appeal in the contemporary
posters, had preferred to show her natural ageing but surprisingly showing a
healthy face and smile. The transformation of herself into a new age Mother
seemed complete in those posters.
When a biography hits the stands, one could be sure either the
subject of the book has become so important in some field that people are now
curious to know about the person or his or her fame has reached to the pinnacle
that he/she should be honoured by a biography or his/her death is imminent. A
cursory browse at the airport bookstalls perhaps would reveal what the country
reading or rather what the publishers want the country to read. Chancing upon a
biography of Jayalalithaa’s biography written by author and journalist,
Vaasanthi in Bangalore airport a couple of months back suddenly made me curious
and I knew something was going to happen to Jayalalithaa. When I picked up the
book, Amma was already in the hospital. When a famous personality is
hospitalised, the research wings of the media go into a hysteric mode; they dig
up all what has been archived and make inferences. And the packages of
television programs, condoling the death or the pages of the newspapers
extolling the life of the dead are already made and kept. Jayalalithaa gave
enough time for the press to prepare her life for publication. Even the timing
of her death or the announcement of it is well timed- 11.30 pm. Newspapers
could fill all their editions with the story of her death. Television channels get
enough time to line up their spots on the next morning. Today is Jayalalithaa’s
day.
(Jayalalithaa with MGR in one of the movies)
Two lives are intricately connected yet with no obvious connections;
the lives of Jayalalithaa and the film diva Rekha. Two reluctant nubile virgins
coming to the big bad world of films due to many pressures including those of
their mothers and their financial conditions- that is the story of both
Jayalalithaa and Rekha. Jayalalithaa’s father Jayaraman died when she was
hardly five years old. Her mother Veda whose stunning beauty had attracted many
film producers eventually decided to put grease paint on her face and assume a
new name, Sandhya. Perhaps, only the oldies know who Sandhya was and how her
acting was like. But everyone knows how Jayalalitha acted. She was not a
supreme beauty the way Rekha is but she could sway the minds because she was
mostly paired with her mentor MGR and with most of the leading actors of the
time. Many heroines who came along with Jayalalithaa faded away as their
youthful looks diminished. But Jayalalithaa reinvented herself by the time she
was forty years old. She had become the undisputed leader of a political party,
AIDMK and the chief minister of one of the big states in India, Tamil Nadu. For
three decades she remained in the political mainstream though it was mired by
allegations and even a term in jail. She was even accused of breaking a family,
having a secret son, maintaining a lesbian relationship with her close friend
Sasikala, brutally punishing the dissenters and ironically subjugating each
male member of the political establishment especially in a state where the
patriarchal values projected by all heroes (Thalaivas of different kinds) and
relived the same in the public and private spheres shamelessly by the Tamil
males. But Jayalalithaa could bring dignity to the Tamil women. Call them Amma,
that is the only way that you could address a Tamil woman who is a stranger to
you. Commendable it is in India.
Rekha is the daughter of Gemini Ganesan, a contemporary to
MGR and Sivaji Ganesan, the doyens of Tamil film industry. Rekha’s mother too
was an actress but Gemini Ganesan did not want to break his own family or
acknowledge his daughter despite her future success in the mainstream
Bollywood. Rekha’s mother was determined but Rekha, like Jayalalitha was
reluctant to join the film industry. But once she was in there was no looking
back. She challenged the patriarchal establishment of Bollywood industry by
throwing spoke to the wheels of a few established families including those of
Vindo Mehra and Amitabh Bacchan, and earning a bad name in the industry as a
vamp and home breaker. But the transformation of the ugly duckling, the dark
southie girl was phenomenal. She broke all the taboos and evolved as one of the
perennial beauties in Indian life almost exuding the magic of a contemporary
Cleopatra, whether you like it or not. Rekha got married to Mukesh Agarwal, the
former Hotline owner, industrialist and a big time depression maniac. He
committed suicide because Rekha was too big for him. Rekha’s name unlike
Jayalalithaa’s got linked up to so many younger actors periodically sending the
rumour mills go crazy and surprisingly she is even accused of having a lesbian
relationship with her personal secretary, Farzaana, who surprisingly dress up
like Amitabh Bacchan. Jayalalithaa has a sister in Rekha.
(Rekha, the evergreen actress)
I do not see Jayalalithaa as a power monger. She knew
statecraft well. Like Imelda Marcos she too had certain fetishes of collecting
shoes, jewellery and sarees. But we have to ask one thing; why it is a thing of
avarice and greed when a woman politician wear certain types of clothes or
amass wealth while the male politicians amass wealth as if there was no
tomorrow. I am not here to justify one corruption against the other. Who knows
tomorrow Jayalalithaa’s life would not become a thing of historical interest
and all those she had amassed would become museum pieces for public perusal? Don’t
we see the avarice and loot of the kings in the museums and now interpreted as
their aesthetical interests and sophistication? Perhaps, Jayalalithaa’s life
needs such a transformation in the coming days. Pitted against the male politicians
in this country, leaders like Mayawati and Mamta Banerjee face the accusation
of not being sophisticated. Both Mamta and Mayawati are lampooned for their
dressing sense, the former for under dressing like a maid and the other one
over dressing like an illiterate neo-rich. Here the identity and the dignity of
the house maids as well as those of the illiterate women are brought into
question and for public ridicule by the male politicians and patriarchal
people. Jayalalitha was not lampooned for either under dressing or for over
dressing. She was lampooned for her power and her ability to display it without
words. Jayalalithaa is history today and we celebrated another woman leader’s
birth centenary last month, of Indira Gandhi. Someone had said about Mrs.Gandhi
that she was the only male member in the parliament. Tamil Nadu had one man
that was Jayalalithaa, but we can say that only when the benchmark of power
wielding is still a man with a lot of authority. Hence, let Jayalalithaa be
Amma and the time is not that far when she is propitiated as a full fledged
deity in the Hindu pantheon, which is already there in a hero-ine worshipping
place like Tamil Nadu.
No comments:
Post a Comment