12/06/2016
I hope my Tamil Friends in Halifax and all over Canada are following the situation going on in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. The below post in regards to sad demise of our Chief Minister sorry
ex-Chief Minister.
For most of the people, especially us in our 20's, the party people wailing, crying, shouting, hitting themselves in distress in front of jail then and hospital now were nothing more than a showpiece. We really wondered and told it out aloud that these people were paid to cry. We made fun of them. We had memes circulating with those crying people's faces in them.
All these days, news about her well being was time pass to us. It was routine crap after crap. The medical reports all seemed like big time bogus. We were all thinking 'Alive or dead, just tell the truth'.
Towards the end of yesterday, however, we all started praying. We all began hoping that she would come back. We were all thinking how marana mass it would be if she actually gets well and comes back. No hero in any movie with any gethu bgm would ever be able to pull it off. Not with as much charisma and elegance as her. It would have been a historic reentry if she had come back. But she didn't. :(
Most of us didn't know we liked her, until we realized that she is no more. I don't know if those party people are crying now. But we are.
We never really understood the kind of fondness with which our grandparents talk about MGR. 'He was just another political leader. He is no more. Why are we getting so dramatic here?' We used to think.
Jayalalitha will be the MGR of our generation.
For years to come, we are going to talk about Amma mess, mixie, grinder, fan, cycles, school bags, laptops, cattle, Thaalikku Thangam, breakfast for school children, waived loans and so many other things that she gave. She was truly a saviour for lakhs of poor people.
We are going to tell our kids and grandchildren about her. We are going to say what a great leader she was, how she had lakhs and lakhs of followers, how powerful she was, how in a men dominated political scene she emerged as the single reigning leader of one of the biggest Dravidian parties despite the insults she faced, how bold she was, how she could answer in eloquently in English... This is going to be a huge list.
For those of us who haven't lost an important family member, her death seems like the biggest tragedy in our lives. She is one leader whose absence will be felt for many more years to come.
You are never going to die, Amma.
You will live forever in our hearts
