Everyone knows I love books. Someone had suggested that I read The Queen by Anita Sivakumaran. It was fiction, I was told, based on my real-life story—my journey from filmstar to chief minister of Tamil Nadu.
My curiosity pricked, I finished it in four hours flat. I felt deflated. You have no idea how that feels. After having my persona and my achievements blown out of proportions by the teeming faithful all these years, I ended up like a caricature. Here I was, witnessing my life stumble past me like a dowdy passenger train. It halted needlessly, travelled aimlessly (even on twin tracks) and passed through boring countryside. And none of its passengers had an interesting tale to tell.
And here I was in the firm belief that I had lived a most colourful and controversial life—being courted by heroes, one of whom became a chief minister, sent my opponents to jail and had a woman friend and her entire extended family live off me and become wealthy in the process. The media ate out of my hand and in turn I used them—if I was not suing them. And yet you paint me in two dimensions—ignoring my physical girth, my effervescent temperament and adamant obstinacy. Where are my famous fits of temper? Oh, I am not such a flat personality!
I have no problem the way Anita describes my film career, intertwined with that of PKB (MGR in real life). I could not even complain about being married off to Sekhar, the Kannada hero (it was a Telugu hero in real life), only to see him die later (he went back to his wife). And you let my mother live till the end, even though she plays no useful part in my politics. Only after she departed did my life became so lonely, with so many who passed through it exploiting my solitude.
But my entry into politics was not this lame, dear Anita—PKB asking me to campaign just before he went off to the US for treatment. I was around much before that, as his chosen political heir (though not openly declared)— insulted by opponents, opposed by his wife...I campaigned even after all this. He returned as CM, rehabilitated me politically and when he died I stood there behind his body, proclaiming the right to be his successor.
Oh, those drama-filled days could have been the pulse of your book. Those days made me the politician that I was—haughty, men-hater, lover of sycophancy and secretive. Those chapters should have explored the shaping of this personality of mine, rather than a disjointed narrative of what happened or did not (it is fiction, mind you). It is clear that you read through Vaasanthi’s Amma to string together the incidents of my life and added a few of your own.
I wish you had more interesting anecdotes or had fleshed out some of the characters you had portrayed. Selvi is very unlike my dear Sasi, except for running a video shop, or getting me to adopt her nephew and marry him off. Of course, she loves to shop. There is very little about her devotion to me and the design behind that—becoming rich and powerful. If she had not been so avaricious I would not have gone to jail in the first place—at least you could have recorded it. Oh, and how she kept feeding me ice-cream and chocolates in spite of my diabetes!
And you do little justice to my bete noire—the speechwriter (Karunanidhi). After PKB, he was the second man in my life—to make it politically relevant. You mention him in passing...so unfair. But for his obsession with me, the way he and his party men humiliated me, I would have been an also-ran. It was he who kept me in the picture. The speechwriter crops at your convenience when he actually provided the context to my politics. PKB called him the evil force—wish you had known that.
Anita, before you write about a state and its politics you should know its geography. Nilgiris Express does not go to Munnar and Karaikudi is not a coastal town. And an MP (Manickavel aka OPS) does not hold a ‘social affairs’ portfolio. Only a minister does. Also, how can I win an MP bypoll to enter the assembly, and later retain the same seat to become leader of opposition in the state? And as chief minister we take oath only once—in Tamil. Not in English, followed by Tamil. I have to clarify this as this book is based on my life. And I am a very meticulous person.
