#notmycm

                           

       

Photo courtesy of my ACJ colleague, Andrew Whitehead.

While our American Idiot bellows on, all is perfectly normal in the state of Tamil Nadu. Jallikattu protests have ended, the game is on, men by the scores are getting gored and it seems the animal protection folks have given up on their campaign to outlaw bull wrestling.

The show has moved on to the political arena, where Sasikala, close companion and advisor of the late chief minister Jayalalitha, (AKA Amma) has been nominated to take her place. No matter the rampant rumors that Sasikala, AKA Chinnamamma, (Little Mother), and her extended family have plotted to steal as much as they could from Jaya and even contributed to her death.  Amma threw them all out in 2012, but mended her rift with Sasikala, who moved back into her Chennai mansion.

Although she may have been a master of palace intrigue behind the scenes, Sasikala has zero experience. 

At a press conference yesterday,  an Amma ally claimed she was pushed by someone from Sasikala's camp during an argument and rushed to hospital to cover up the crime. She languished there for days until dying of cardiac arrest December 5. In the past week, pro Sasikala posters show her face emerging ghost-like from an image of Jaya, as if she were her mentor's reincarnation. Her face has been ripped from many of these posters.

Last night, acting chief minister O Panneerselvam (AKA OPS) declared that he had been forced to resign by Sasikala's family. After spending 40 minutes in meditation at Jaya's gravesite on Marina Beach, he held a press conference before a crowd of reporters that had conveniently assembled nearby. From the grave, Jaya had told him to stay on as CM.

At her own press conference, Sasikala refuted Panneerselvam. In turn, OPS let her have it again: "There have been doubts about Amma's death. An investigation commission by a retired judge is needed to look at Amma's death as it is the duty of a government to eliminate doubts of people."

Amid so much drama (a staple of Tamilian politics) after the death of Amma, more god than human to many in Tamil Nadu, it's impossible to glean where the truth lies. And where it doesn't. And what it has to do with the welfare of Tamil Nadu's 77 million residents is a mystery.