Excerpt - Preface 30 ordinary folks committed suicide. 47 police personnel got wounded. 27 people dead in the violence and there was widespread looting all over the state. Lakhs of people tonsured their head which was a custom in Tamil Nadu when parents die. Public properties were damaged and there was one statue that was the cynosure of all eyes earmarked for extensive damage. Police had to issue shoot-at-sight orders. A psychologist wrote a column about the intra-punitive and extra punitive reactions of people in extreme grief. That morning on 24th December 1987 had the whole state looking like a graveyard, not very different from 26th December 2006 when Tsunami devastated the whole Tamil Nadu coast. The comparison of two dates before and after Christmas in inevitable. They were acts of nature which sunk a multitude into grief and personal loss. Only difference is that the former was caused by a death of a man. A man known by just three English letters, an enigma and fondly referred to as Vaadhiyar & Puratchi Thalaivar! That was MGR. A matinee idol turned Chief Minister, a Sri Lanka born Malayalee who made the hearts of millions of Tamils as his home. And what a home that was to be, with the name spelling magic after 93 years of his birth and 23 years of his death. He was conferred the Bharat Ratna and people criticized about the political motives behind that move. Little they did know that he was already one in the minds of millions of Tamils and he will continue to be so forever as long as the legend of MGR is kept alive. MGR is a phenomenon, that’s what people have always said. The Cambridge English Dictionary defines phenomenon as ‘someone or something extremely successful, often because of special qualities or abilities’ and the Roget’s thesaurus uses words like event, marvel, miracle, nonpareil, one for the books,paradox, peculiarity, rarity, reality, sensation, something else, spectacle, stunner, uniqueness etc. One cannot wonder about the fact that each one of these words could be apt for describing MGR. Maybe because the last name of Phenomenon was Menon too. Cassius when talking about Caesar to Brutus said Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus, and we petty men Walk under his huge legs and peep about To find ourselves dishonourable graves. Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that Caesar? Why should that name be sounded more than yours? Write them together, yours is as fair a name; Cassius was pained when he said those words trying to make Brutus feel the same pain of being a lesser equal than the great Caesar. But there was something to the name. And there was a many a Cassius in Tamil Nadu when MGR bestrode the narrow world of the state. It is very difficult to avoid a hagiography when attempting to write about leaders who transcended the space allotted to mere mortals. But alas, the word phenomenon does have many meanings and the leaders themselves have been faithful living up to those definitions. MGR was a difficult man to understand and a subject even more difficult to comprehend when all one has is hearsay and not experience. Earlier books had either categorized him as God or as a Myth but this would be an attempt to see the real face behind the phenomenon. The man if he is to be understood, should be understood as an external package as much as he was a person who had very little trust on others and kept everyone in a state of uncertainty, all the 4 crore people who he ruled in the state, but for his ardent admirers who would die at the news of his death.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 12:44:15 +0000
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