The crowd ebbed and flowed around him, wailing, clicking selfies, craning necks. K. Manivanan (30) sat hunched in a plastic chair, his crutches on the ground. He was not even under the main tent; one could barely see the steps of the Rajaji Hall from where he sat.
Considering he had stayed as close to Former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa as the law would allow him the last 73 days, Manivanan’s location was unusual. Since September 23, he had stayed outside the ‘In’ gate of the Apollo Hospitals off Greams Road, through, as he put it, “the rain, the mosquitoes and the heat.”
Tuesday brought emptiness. “I am not happy how it turned out,” he said, unable to explain how the purpose had gone out of his life. A postgraduate, he used to take tuitions for school children at his house in Villupuram District and does not contemplate going home. “I walked here straight from Apollo Hospitals and will go to Marina for the funeral. I will stay at Amma ’s memorial for a few days, at least,” he said. Manivanan cannot recount specific instances when Jayalalithaa acknowledged him.
“I have not received anything from her. My heart tells me she will reward me in the future,” said the man who was afflicted by polio as a five-year-old.
As the rich, the famous and the powerful ascended the steps of Rajaji Hall to pay their respects, those like Manivanan stayed in the periphery, satisfied with fleeting glances of Jayalalithaa. Or, like S. Saravanan who had come from Chengalpattu, three glances. “I saw her thrice. There are so many people, so the police keep asking you to move on and I kept going back,” he said, eyes still red from the crying.
Like many others, Saravanan had lost his footwear in the rush outside the gates of the Tamil Nadu Government Multi Speciality Hospital and was searching for them.
“For me, supporting her came naturally. My father was an MGR supporter, so I picked up from him,” he said.
Weeping, G. Maithili from Thiru. Vi. Ka. Nagar, an office bearer of the local unit of the AIADMK, said “We have to fight to keep this party as a party for women.”
She is willing to trust Jayalalithaa’s judgement in choosing a successor. “MGR chose the right person for us, so we have to trust the new chief minister,” she said.
(With inputs from V.S. Palaniappan in Coimbatore)
