It was the best of times; it was the worst of times to write the book. There has never been a good time really, to write a biography on Jayalalithaa.
Several attempts to do so, while she was living, were frustrated before publication as the uber sensitive late chief minister was wary of her life being, well, an open book. But for an immensely popular television interview with Simi Garewal, newspaper reports, a dated, serialised autobiography of sorts, rumours that ride around in awe-struck, hushed tones, it really was difficult to get a peek at the real person that was this ‘Empress.’ Posthumous was probably the best time to publish a biography without the Damocles’ sword of a law suit, but none of the other circumstances has changed.
Working with these challenges puts any biographer at a disadvantage. And riding on a linear narrative further confounds the problem, exposing the gaps in the telling, making the account all too familiar, repetitive, in its rendering.
There is no contest with the basic premise of the book — Jayalalithaa was a cult figure, commandeering extreme loyalty, invoking great fear, a larger-than-life persona who defied definition. The book seeks to “portray the ups and downs in her life, her legal and political battles and her political dominance in Tamil Nadu.” It does so too, in the manner of a reporter whose key sources have refused to speak, and have fobbed her off on to secondary sources.
Kalyani Shankar, a senior journalist based in Delhi, is familiar with the ways of Indian politicians, having followed many of them throughout her career. Jayalalithaa though, is entirely inscrutable, even to those who have followed her over a career. All those who have commented before have remarked over the same things, a woman, a Brahmin, chartering her own territory in a patriarchal Dravidian political set-up of Tamil Nadu, her incredible charisma, her impetuosity, her relationship with genuflecting partymen, rampant corruption, her relationship with Sasikala and her family.
In a book that sets great store by facts and figures already in the public realm, efforts should have been made to avoid errors: One reference from a previously published report records a series that Jayalalithaa wrote for the Tamil magazine Kumudam . The author goes on to add that Kumudam “disappeared from circulation altogether.” It is still being published.
The Holy Grail would be to provide a version that is vastly different from this narrative, or adds to the narrative with never-before insight. Today, with Jayalalithaa gone, and her closest associates alienated completely and their credibility under serious assault, perhaps this chalice is never to be found, after all.
The Empress: The Dramatic Life of A Powerful and Enigmatic Leader ; Kalyani Shankar, Bloomsbury, ₹399.
