MG Ramachandran's death anniversary has been a quiet affair for the past few years. You will see odd posters here and there from old faithfuls. The new ADMK is built around Jayalalithaa. However, today it was a surprise to see a big turnout at MGR's memorial in Marina beach. Lots of vans, traffice diverted in Beach Road and all that. The ADMK pary was out in full force remembering its founder. Probably Jayalalithaa realised that she still needed MGR's charisma (even though he has been dead for 18 years now) in the forthcoming elections.
We were in Pudukkottai and I was 12 when MGR passed away on 24th Dec, 1987. Our house was the only one with Television in our street. So we had all sorts of people pouring in to see the funeral procession broadcast live on TV. And people were crying like crazy. That man had such a hold on Tamilnadu. No one else has ever come close to that.
1 comment:
Chenthil, Quite true about the hold MGR had on Tamil Nadu. It is really unbelievable. In 1990, I was attending a late night (well past midnight) public meeting of Karunanidhi (he was chief minister then and would be dismissed in about three weeks) at a remote village in North Arcot district. Went around chatting to the people in the crowd, especially some women. One of them, an elderly woman, said she would vote for "puratchi thalaivar" in the next elections (this when MGR was dead for three years), whenever they are held.
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