Malligai, a 40-year-old woman resident of Vathuruthy, a Kochi colony of over 6,000 Tamils, gave out a long, shrill cry each time she looked at a portrait of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa who passed away late Monday night, which was kept covered in a floral mound in the colony’s main square for followers to pay homage.
“How would I come to terms with this realityIJ For the past 70 days, I have been asking God to bless Amma with long life and somehow I had a feeling that a woman like her is not meant to die. Amma was 68 years old but that is not perhaps the age for one like her to surrender to death,” whispers Malligai as she continues to stare at the portrait with tear-welling eyes.
The grown-ups in the colony, both men and women, skipped a day’s work on Tuesday to be in front of Jayalalithaa’s portrait in the colony square, singing her praises, lighting the incense sticks, filling oil in Nilavilakku, the traditional lamp placed before it and waving off swarms of flies from the portrait using palm-frond fans.
“What kind of people we will be if we cannot do at least this for a goddess-like lady who had done so much for us and our relatives back there in Tamil Nadu. She had given us whatever we had asked for. But what is the use in my telling you all this. The reality is that Amma has left for a world from where there is no comeback,” said Murugappan, a father of three.
The scene was not very different in Vandanmedu and Kumily, spice centres in the eastern mountains of Kerala. The cardamom trade centres did not function on Tuesday. In the tea gardens of Munnar and Peerumed, emotions of the Tamil workers were no different but they did their day’s work though with minds shrouded in uncontrollable grief.
As reports of her countless followers lining up in Chennai to have a glimpse of the Amma filled all the bulletins of even Kerala TV channels, devotees and office-bearers of two Kerala temples rekindled memories of the special poojas and offerings Jayalalithaa, who had proved herself to be different from other leaders of Dravidian politics with her belief in God, had made years back.
“It was 2001 and she was facing serious allegations. At that time she turned to the deities of the temples of Thalipparamba in Kannur and Alathiyur in Malappuram for divine succor. Several top leaders have made offerings in these shrines but Jayalalithaa was primarily responsible for the fame they enjoy today,” said EV Krishnan of Malappuram, a specialist in temple affairs.
Her visits to the Kerala temples were on the basis of advices from astrologers. She reached the Sree Rajarajeswara temple of Thalipparambu on July 3, 2001 and offered silver and golden pitchers, a special ritual in that shrine. She had also offered a 15-year-old tusker, Krishna, to the lord Krishna temple at Guruvayur in Thrissur district.
“She left the Rajarajeswara temple after 8.00 pm that day saying she would come back later but this did not happen. However, Jayalalithaa had kept the relationship with the shrine all these years. She never forgot to send her messengers here every month for making offerings to the deity on her behalf. They had come here for this even last month,” said Neelakanthan, an office-bearer of the Thalipparamba temple.