Tuesday 27 December 2016

Dear Amma, now that you're gone I can finally say this to you: I hate you

My Dear Amma,

Now that you're gone, I can finally express everything I have always felt for you, just like everyone wants to hop on that train to talk about you.

So did you just really kick the bucket Madam Chief Minister? Or should I say "Amma". I know you kept to yourself, and social media probably wasn't really your thing while you were alive. So I should let you know that we, the audience, has upgraded you from the position of being "Amma" to "#RIPAmma" today.

Don't worry, you've still got haters. Plenty of them.

I think some of them would have liked to stab your lifeless body, even. And why shouldn't they? You were corrupt. You had disproportionate assets. Or in the words of your trolls, "How could you not SEE that she had disproportionate 'assets'?" Oh, don't ask me to explain. Of course you know what I mean. What do you mean you don't understand what a "troll" is? They've haunted you all your life, haven't they?

You've been bullied (even without the anonymity of the Internet) for as long as you can remember, for as long as womankind can remember. How dare you be single and childless and not your quiet Brahmin self? What business did a woman who danced with every man in sight have in the running of a government? They were right to push you out of everywhere that wasn't your place.
First, you wanted a place in MGR's funeral, a man who was your senior for 30 years! And then you wanted his life's work for yourself. What kind of a woman are you?

Yet, on your cold, heartless face, you didn't shed a single tear of humiliation. You simply wouldn't take a hint. They didn't want you — nobody wanted you. And you barged in again and again until the assembly floor was yours.

How many times have you worn that green saree that you were buried in, with a sea of men clad in white veshtis sitting behind you, like they knew what their place was, finally? You did it, didn't you? You shredded every principle of human decency to bits to get what you wanted? Absolute, corrosive power — that's your thing. How could you? You are a woman, after all! Seriously, jeez!

You know the actual, real, truth, Amma? India doesn't deserve you. Probably never did.

The bunch of patriarchal pigs in this country don't deserve you, let alone sully your grace with "Amma" rolling off their tongues. You gave up on a life that could be filled with laughter and love so you could be pushed around and betrayed by ungrateful men all the time. How did you even call him your mentor, the man who was possessive of you to the degree of abuse.

MGR spied on you, and they buried you next to him. He doesn't deserve you.

Oh, and Karunanidhi and his shitbag goons were the cherry on top, weren't they? Disrobing you in the house of governance, like the irreverent and disgusting swines they are. You taught them a lesson and you kept at it until the day you died. Even they didn't deserve you. They don't deserve anything of you, not even your vengeance.

You've had the worst happen to you, with a wild touch of inhuman suffering. And you managed to turn out to be the best of them all. How could you? I don't care how you got acquitted on all the cases that were against you. Maybe they were false. But I'd really like to believe that it was because you were powerful- so absolutely, demonically powerful, like they painted you to be and the way you deserved it.

Exactly how long were you planning to go off and die without grooming a successor?

You knew that Ol' Man Kalaignar isn't going to stick around for much longer, right? And was it then that you decided you should leave your own party to run around like headless chickens? Oh, God no, you'd never do that. Nobody would doubt your love for them, your benevolence and your unwavering commitment to their lives. Except, nobody deserves it, and they have become headless chickens.

You're the best, Amma. You were the worst kind of woman, the kind they teach us not to be, but you're the Amma of it all, aren't you? You owned everything that wasn't meant for you, that you didn't even want, to begin with. You cared not for love or marriage, or eventually your own family. You broke your heart over whichever man you wanted. You wore power in the place of the saree that was ripped off of you. You were Chief Minister SIX times, and twice in a row the last time around.

You were uncharacteristically autocratic, because how else would idiotic men know their place?

You broke every glass ceiling that was ever made, every stereotype that was ever enforced, every godly rule they ever made for a woman. You horribly magnanimous woman, you were never afraid.

The world has not seen many women like yourself. I'm not like you, can't be.

How then should I not hate you dear Amma, for being the most powerful woman this country saw and I knew?

(Source: Akkar Bakkar)

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