Laxman Jhula, Rishikesh 11/4/08
Ms. Jayalalithaa drew my attention since the first day I landed in India. Huge posters of a woman’s face were looking at me all the way from the Chennai’s Air Port. In a city of 7++ million people, that kind of a large poster makes a remarkable statement, soon enough I realized that she is of great importance.
The next days I learned that she is a powerful politician, and she just celebrated her 60th birthday. She was a member in the Indian Parliament for many years and was the chief minister of Tamil Nadu – a big county that included Chennai. She was an actress as young, but than she moved to politics with great success, never married.
It happened to be that my Guest House that I stayed in Chennai, was a walking distance from her home. I wouldn’t know about it other wise, but the Police closed all the roads around her house on regular basis. On one day they were some 50-60 very posh cars in the near-by streets, and a line of chauffeurs were waiting for their bosses.
In some days, people from all over the country came to greet Jayalalithaa, as they saw her a Healer, a Holy Amma etc.
On her posters it’s written: AMMA IS GOD!
Jayalalithaa has a lot of power as she have the support and admiration of the masses; she attracts a lot of attention; most probably she have enemies too; she is on regular basis in the news, keeping always a high profile.
I met a woman in a the bus on the way to Bangalore, she spoke very highly of her, she said to me in an excellent English: Jayalalithaa gave a lot of confidence to the Indian women with her courage and powerful performance in politics – it was her new stage!!