Landscape of Thembarai

Your affectionate sister.

One evening as i was deep into the  decision making process of choosing the  vegetable for  curry  for that night's dinner heard the land line tinkle .I was alone at home at Chennai which had  recovered from that terrible floods and the city was looking as normal as ever just after 15 days
Thought hmn , must be my nosy relative and frowned at the interruption to my decision making process.                                                                                                                                   Nevertheless picked up the receiver and heard to my surprise the well modulated , sweet and clear voice of  CM Jayalalitha   introducing herself as "Your loving and affectionate sister" .
she spoke a bit about the  floods and measures taken by her to mitigate the hard ships caused by it.This didn't gel with me and i thought to myself' 'Where were you madame in that panicky night and following days?You were missing in those crucial hours.'
Then she said something that stirred me with its honesty as i felt that it was direct from her heart.She was thanking people of Tamilnadu for calling her Amma [ mother] and making her  a family member whilst she had no family .
There was so much  poignancy  and genuine gratitude in these words that it touched me and left me pondering .Why did she have to mention this bit now?Her recorded message was not for seeking votes ,I was sure of that .It was more or less seeking forgivness in her own way for the lapses in her usual unbending manner and was registering her gratitude to the people of TN.She was speaking from the depth of her being and it was like as if she was signing off therefore had little time in her hand and hence the need to share her most intimate feelings with all of us personally.

Her crystal clear sweet voice and message kept ringing in my ears for several days and then i forgot it.

Few months back to be precise September--October 2016when i heard that she was on air support for days together  .those words spoken gently and mellifluously came back to haunt me with its heart twisting poignancy..
Wasn't my current dog like status with some chip implanted within me in the garb of maintaining law and order one of her doings?An implant that has smothered my individuality, freedom and sense of privacy? Bitterness and frustrated  anger does well up in me from time to time against such a inhuman control .I ought to be gleeful and feel triumphant at the workings of karma .Am relying on karma as i can never avenge the humiliations i have been subject to since 2012 on my own resources.

I shouldn't even be writing this , just hug myself in glee and smirk like a cat that had its cream.

Yet i am writing after procrastinating the decision to do so .Why? My need to share my observations on life is over whelming and this blog is a vehicle to do so .

It is my observation in life this far ,that  persons who are like any other with the usual mixture of virtues and vices , suddenly become too good to be true , tranquil and even minded and are totally devoid of malice and rise above pettiness when they are nearing death .It is like as if they have reached a higher plane and they no longer harbour even a a jot of wickedness , greed or lust or anger and other vices.They become too good to be true and  those who discern this change the way i did on several occasions , one has to genuinely and automatically  bow in their presence as such persons start exuding the Stithapragnya state , viz a calm attitude that takes pleasures and pains of life  equally ,a presence  which is a chip of the creator.
That soft spoken message of gratitude  on the phone had that quality and i wonder now as i did then ,was this extra ordinary woman whom i watched admiringly through media in my daily life since 1990's at her absolute domination of men of all shades ,her lovely and pleasing face and voice and her ability to govern as well as handle politics single handedly, bidding fare well?She was not her active self since her internment at Bangalore last year in the same month viz September  .Her physical condition seems to have worsened since then.

many may think that i am writing a obituary before hand out of malice and vengeance is not so.Despite my angst at being short changed by a person  i had seen rule this state since i settled here , seen her so often as a cm that she had become part of our family  and she was one of the very few political leaders i actually admired and even felt a regret that she was not a member of a national party which could have surely  secured her  the seat of PM a post she was capable of doing justice,though i was not blind to her faults i did feel the betrayal of my trust and admiration keenly ,and asked why madame why?I have never written a single word against you in my blogs, only praises due to my actual admiration . yet i also felt a moment of deep pathos and reverential regret when i first heard that mellifluous message and also the instant when i deduced from hospital bulletins in October that Amma J. Jayalalitha the colossus had collapsed.
                   4.12.16
 Note:The germ of this peice was in my mind for long viz ever since i came to know of her hospitalisation but didn't write it  but felt the overwhelming urge to write this during my stay at Bangalore after i woke up two nights from deep sleep with severe headache in middle of night ,There was no paper in the house hence i didn't write rather couldn't write.Maybe its effects were still there when i returned to my house here at Chennai and hence wrote this over coming my inhibition and fear of not wanting to hurt amma's followers as i have to live in this place.This head ache acts like a truth serum viz i have to cough it all and this urge is so overwhelming that it  blinds me to pitfalls and i am made to go head on .
Nothing has happened to me after blogging this nor was i arrested for spreading rumours.Forgot that i am already under a unique sort of arrest.

wrote after a severe headache so forced to write the above so it also goes to draft