Why did Rajinikanth say, “If Jayalalithaa comes to power again, even God can’t save Tamil Nadu.” ❤️

A Tale of Two TN Elections - 1996 & 2001

1996 – DMK’s Massive Win – the Rajinikanth Factor

2001 – ADMK’s Controversial Win – the OPS Factor

This day, 30 years ago, from my personal diary entry

#memoriesfromdiaries

The 1996 Tamil Nadu Elections, would, I’m sure go down into history as an election that saw a historic defeat for the ADMK and a record-breaking win for the DMK! A win that was inspired by a famous one-liner by Super Star Rajini Kanth - "Even God cannot save Tamil Nadu if Jayalalithaa is voted back to power."

For the first time ever, anti-incumbency wave was so high, because of massive corruption in the bureaucracy, that even the sitting Chief Minister Ms. J. Jayalalithaa lost her seat in the Bargur constituency to DMK candidate E.G. Sugavanam by a significant margin.

And that’s hence the film Indian, which lampooned this massive wave of corruption was deliberately released just after the elections got over. 😊

On an aside, the film Indian primarily targeted the “everyday” corruption that ordinary citizens faced – be it the bribes at the RTO, in government hospitals, or building permits, etc., and the movie’s villains were largely government employees and officials! In one way, then, the film could be called the Zeitgeist of 1996, as it was released at a time when the Jayalalithaa-led government (1991–1996) was facing unprecedented, allegations of corruption. This corruption was prevalent even at the national level, which saw financial scams nationwide (such as the Hawala scandal and the Harshad Mehta scam).

1996 also saw the birth of the Tamil Maanila Congress by G. K. Moopanar. Since the Indian National Congress (INC) leadership in Delhi had decided to ally with the AIADMK despite strong opposition from its state unit, veteran leader G.K. Moopanar broke away to form a new party, the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC). Promptly, the DMK, led by Mr. M. Karunanidhi, allied with the newly formed TMC, and the alliance swept the elections in a landslide, winning 221 out of 234 seats, reducing the AIADMK to just four seats in the 1996 newly formed Assembly.

So why-o-why did Rajini interfere and intervene in politics?

Can you believe that, superstar Rajinikanth’s famous one-liner (that he gave on the eve of the 1996 TN Elections), happened because of a profound sense of guilt?

In the year 1995 Rajini’s blockbuster film titled, Baasha proved a box-office it!

The film sports Manikkam (Rajinikanth), as a humble, peace-loving auto-rickshaw driver who is utterly devoted to his family, working tirelessly to fund his siblings’ education and arrange his sister’s marriage. Manikkam is a peace-loving person who wants to avoid violence, even bowing his head and apologising to local thugs just to keep the peace and protect his family.

But when Manikkam’s brother becomes a police officer, he gets into the bad books of local thugs, who attack Manikkam’s brother and brutally assault his sister. This proves the moment when Manikkam is finally pushed past his breaking point! In a thunderous transformation, he tracks down the attackers and single-handedly beats them up black and blue! That’s when the local thugs realise that this simple auto driver is no ordinary man.

There’s this famous one-liner even in the film that Rajinikanth delivers with his trademark style and swagger –

Naan oru thadava sonna, nooru thadava sonna maadiri.

நான் ஒரு தடவை சொன்னா, நூறு தடவை சொன்ன மாதிரி.

“If I say it once, it is equivalent to saying it a hundred times.”

The film was produced by RM Veerappan’s Sathya Movies. RMV was also a sitting cabinet minister in Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK government at that point of time.

RMV decided to celebrate the 100th-day celebration of Baashha in a grand gala function (which sadly proved RMV’s nemesis as well!)

During the event, Rajinikanth took to the stage and spoke out boldly expressing his seething anger and anguish over the “bomb culture” in Tamil Nadu during Ms. Jayalalithaa’s regime (just then a bomb attack had happened on director Mani Ratnam’s residence - on 10 July 1995 – as a direct, violent backlash against his critically acclaimed film, Bombay!

RM Veerappan was present on the dais and he remained a “mute spectator” instead of countering the Rajinikanth’s criticism of the government. This made Ms. Jayalalithaa very furious and as was expected, the very next day, RMV from his ministerial cabinet post.

Rajinikanth was completely shattered upon learning that his impromptu outburst had cost his producer and friend his ministerial post. Much later, in a speech, he recalled being unable to sleep that night, haunted by the guilt that his lack of clarity regarding the political implications of his speech had ruined RMV’s political career.

It seems that, when Rajinikanth called RMV the next morning to profusely apologise and offered to speak to Jayalalithaa to smooth things over, RMV handled the situation with remarkable composure. RMV told him to forget about it, advised him not to lose his dignity by begging the Chief Minister, and calmly asked about Rajinikanth’s upcoming shooting schedule.

RMV acting “as if nothing had happened” left a deep sense of guilt on Rajinikanth. And this harsh and autocratic dismissal of RMV was the trigger that set Rajinikanth against Jayalalithaa’s ‘corrupt’ administration.

That’s hence the famous one-liner through which he backed and openly gave a call in support of the DMK-TMC alliance in the 1996 TN elections -

If Jayalalithaa comes to power again, even God can’t save Tamil Nadu.

This single line resonated massively with the public, helping sweep the opposition to power and cementing Rajinikanth’s role as a potent political voice in the state.

Five years later, come 2001, and you see a complete reversal of fortunes.

This particular day in history, (a quarter century ago!) saw a massive win for the AIADMK front in the Assembly Elections in Tamil Nadu. The AIADMK had fought the elections in alliance with the MDMK, PMK, Congress, etc.

Quite interestingly, many opinion polls had predicted a landslide win for Mr. Karunanidhi’s DMK, (which had fought the elections in an alliance with the BJP), because of the many people-welfare measures that the DMK patriarch had implemented during his tenure as Chief Minister.

Poll pundits attributed this surprising loss for the DMK to their impulsive move in forcing out Vaiko’s MDMK from their alliance - which had severely impacted their political fortunes, resulting in their colossal defeat at the hustings.

In short, to sum it up then, 

1996 proved that the wrath of the public cannot be bought, while

2001 proved that the value of an ally cannot be ignored!

Looking Beyond the Sensational | A Tribute to P. Sainath and Our Student Bloggers ❤️

On P. Sainath - Historian of the Everyday! 

& A Lovely Note of Appreciation for our Consistent Bloggers

#onhisbirthdaytoday

13th May 2026

We live in an age where media outlets and content creators right from independent YouTubers to major digital news outlets, heavily rely on sensationalism and clickbait tactics to drive views for their pages.

To this end, they make use of sensational titles or dramatic thumbnails that provoke curiosity in the innocent viewer and misguides them to their videos, thus gaining their valuable attention time.

Yes, we live in an attention economy where attention equals revenue for these media outlets. As such, the noble role and responsibility of media houses has been relegated to the back burner especially in this past decade!

And this has fundamentally altered journalistic priorities, often pushing deep, people-oriented issues like poverty and unemployment to the margins in favour of immediate, high-emotion content.

Back in ages past, journalists were held in high esteem, because they acted as public watchdogs, voice of the voiceless, and conscience-keepers of a vibrant democracy. And this they did by investigating governments, corporations, and institutions and holding them accountable for their actions. They exposed corruption, unethical practices, and abuses of power.

Moreover, ethical journalists used to amplify the stories and perspectives of the people living in poverty, deprivation and unemployment, shining a light on social injustice.

P. Sainath is one of those rare journalists who is famous for his consistent dedication to reporting on rural India, poverty, and structural inequality.

At a time when mainstream media depends on sensationalism and increasingly focused on urban consumerism and the lifestyles of the elite, Sainath directed his focus entirely toward the marginalised -

I’m all in awe and admiration for his unrelenting focus on the everyday lives of everyday people, in his writing - on rural India, poverty, and structural inequality.

Instead of covering sensational political corridors or the entertainment quotient of the silver screen, Sainath committed himself to grassroots reporting.

He has spent an average of 270 days a year walking and traveling through India’s poorest, most drought-stricken districts. His philosophy centres on documenting the resilience, labour, and tragedies of ordinary people!

He also deserves credit for being one of those rare-breed of journalists who exposed the profound agrarian crisis in India to mainstream reporting, through his groundbreaking work on the huge scale of farmer suicides in India! He also highlighted the reasons for these mass suicides as a crisis driven by their huge debts, and policy failures on the part of the governments.

It was because of his reporting that, governments across many states were forced to acknowledge the seriousness of the issue and pushed for policies like farm loan waivers and crisis packages for farmers. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen had once famously referred to him as “one of the world’s great experts on famine and hunger.”

In the year 2014, with the noble aim of combating the corporate media’s failure to cover two-thirds of the country’s population, Sainath founded the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI).

PARI is a completely independent, free-access multimedia digital platform dedicated entirely to rural India. It aims to document the 833 million people speaking 780 living languages, archiving their unique occupations, arts, crafts, and cultures before they disappear.

Furthermore, he is a dedicated educator, teaching courses on inequality and rural affairs at institutions globally, including Princeton University, and training young journalists from marginalised communities.

His 1996 book, titled, Everybody Loves a Good Drought - a collection of 84 field reports analysing rural deprivation - remains a seminal text in journalism schools and universities worldwide, encapsulating a career built entirely on giving voice to the voiceless.

I am an avid reader of The Hindu newspaper, every morning, for the past four decades, 😊 and I’ve always admired their consistency in giving wide coverage to rural affairs – which includes poverty, deprivation, hunger, malnutrition and unemployment.

Proud to note that, P. Sainath was the Rural Affairs Editor with The Hindu for a decade, from 2004 until his resignation in 2014. One reason why we have Sainath prescribed in our syllabus HERE.

I still remember the day I listened to a lecture by The Hindu’s Mr. N. Ram, organised by the Asian College of Journalism, on 18th January 2013, where N. Ram said, “You can study anything under the sun, but you can’t be a good journalist unless you cover deprivation!”. You may want to read more on that Lecture on our past blogpost HERE.

18 January 2013 | ACJ

To conclude this post with a fervent and urgent plea for all of academia - 

It’s high time we celebrated the works of Sainath in our classrooms – not only as an academic exercise but also to provide a paradigm shift in the perspective of our students to look beyond the sensational!

In a way, this helps the student to shift their perspectives from a passive study of aesthetics to an active, critical engagement with the lived realities of society!

As Chinua Achebe so famously said, 

Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.

It is time academia helped our students become these vibrant historians of the everyday.

And in this regard, I am so proud of our consistent bloggers who are doing us proud by being such cute little historians of the everyday, each and every passing day of their holidays!

So proud of you all for celebrating your personal space and making use of your holidays in such noble ways!

Keep it up guys! A huge and memorable special prize awaits you all when College reopens! 😊

When Displaced Daughters Shatter Mirrors | in Bronte & Mani Ratnam ❤️

The Illusion of the Safe Space

When Jane & Amudha Shattered the Mirror

#mirrorsymbolism #reflections

The very first time I studied mirror symbolism with such meditative reverence, was while reading through Bronte’s Jane Eyre.

I had the privilege of teaching Jane Eyre way back in 2002, for the BA English Literature Class in American College, Madurai.

In fact, on hindsight, realisation dawned on me that, the novel sports one of the most famous mirror scenes in all of literature. 😊

Also, I’m in pure awe of Bronte for the richness of her symbolism - a masterful writerly Mani Ratnam of the Victorian Era! 

In Victorian literature in general, and to Charlotte Bronte in particular, mirrors were not just vanity objects. They served as rich psychological devices, representing the duality of human nature, the fracturing of identity, the soul, and the strict societal expectations placed upon individuals (particularly women).

Sample this scene in the Red Room in Chapter Two –

When she was just a ten-year old child, an orphaned Jane is unjustly locked in the terrifying Red Room. When she is alone in the room, she catches sight of herself in the “great looking-glass.” Instead of seeing a familiar child, she sees a strange, ghostly figure of herself in the mirror -

All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit...

The mirror reflects Jane’s profound sense of alienation and otherness. She feels disconnected from the wealthy Reed family and even from her own body. The reflection here represents the suppressed, rebellious spirit inside her that Victorian society deems unnatural for a young girl.

Now, let’s try and compare Bronte’s Jane with Mani Ratnam’s Amudha – ‘texts’ that are 155 years apart but still hold a lot of similarities between them.

Both stories host very young girls as their protagonists.

Jane is 10 years old, while Amudha is nine years old.

Both girls grapple with a fractured sense of identity!

Jane Eyre is a literal orphan, treated as an unwanted stranger in the house! However, Amudha who discovers that she is adopted only on her ninth birthday, is deeply loved by her adoptive parents. But still, this revelation shatters her known reality.

Like Jane, she suddenly feels she is an outsider in her own home.

For both protagonists, the realisation of their “orphanhood” triggers an existential crisis!

Interestingly, Neither Jane nor Amudha are passive victims of their circumstances; they are fiercely vocal and rebellious children who refuse to let adults dictate their reality.

When young Jane is unjustly punished, she famously erupts at her Aunt Reed saying –

“I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you...”

Amudha too exhibits the exact same fiery, uncontainable and indomitable spirit. When her parents try to gently manage the truth of her adoption, Amudha rebels. She runs away from home, and demands that her parents take her to Sri Lanka.

We find here that, both Jane and Amudha use their voice as a weapon against the trauma of their displacement!

Both girls hence, are out on a quest in search of the ideal maternal figure.

Similarly, both the ‘texts’ use the physical environment as psychological spaces to mirror the internal psychological chaos of their protagonists. (Remember the very first memorable line of Yeats’ ‘A Prayer for My Daughter’?

Mani Ratnam’s Kannathil Muthamittal also sports mirror symbolism in the beginning of the film – quite a regular and habituated trope for Mani Sir! 😊

There’s this intimate scene between Shyama and Dileepan – Amudha’s biological parents - which is mirrored for the viewers.

A beautiful piece of masterful symbolism!

It could connote the fact that the peace and the love and the intimacy which Shyama and Dileepan are experiencing now is painfully temporary, alluding to the fragility of their ‘real’ world, which is as fragile as a mirror!

Just as a mirror is easily shattered, their marriage, their home, and their lives are about to be violently shattered by the erupting civil war!

In that way, the mirror symbolism acts as a kind of visual foreshadowing of sorts!

The mirror here creates a temporary, almost illusionary safe space haven!

And that’s where Lacan comes handy for us  –

To Lacan, when a child first recognises their reflection in a mirror, they perceive a unified, whole self (the Ideal - I). However, this is a misrecognition, that masks the subject’s actual fragmented reality.

The “known reality” of Amudha’s safe Chennai upbringing or Jane’s initial, structured life at Thornfield are these Imaginary, mirror-stage illusions!

That’s hence, Lacan says that, one cannot stay in the Imaginary for long. The mirror must shatter for the subject to have an encounter with the Real – something that is traumatic, and something that disrupts our ‘constructed realities’ for us.

Well, to conclude then, both Jane and Amudha, are ultimately on a journey to resolve the trauma of their displacement and finally they find a true sense of home – by shattering the mirror – resulting in a beautiful transition from the mirror to the real!

One memorable quote that I love a lot, from the only Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz would – I’m sure – be the icing on the cake for this little post. So here goes –

Home is not where you were born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease!

Woww! 😊

Why Did Divya and Devika Look into the Mirror? | From Mouna Ragam to Teacher 💜

Why did Divya and Devika “Look” into the Mirror?

#reflections

The mirror has always been an inevitable part of all good literature across the ages, endowed with rich symbolism, exemplifying the duality between the observer and their reflection - the divide between the ‘self’ and the ‘other.’

That’s hence, in literature and in films, characters looking into mirrors are often shown confronting their divided sense of self! The reflection acts as a doppelganger or the ‘Jungian shadow’ – symbolising a physical manifestation of internal guilt, hidden desires, or a fractured sense of self!

One reason why, feminist literary criticism looks upon the mirror as an instrument of the male gaze, and women in literature are often depicted as “trapped by their reflections”.

Now, let’s together do an analysis on how the mirror functions as a divide between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’, in Mani Ratnam’s 1986 milestone film titled, Mouna Ragam (Silent Symphony).

Yes, I am an avid fan of Mani Ratnam! 😊

Mouna Ragam follows the life of Divya, a spirited and vibrant young woman (privately grieving the tragic death of her former lover, Manohar), who is pressurised by her family into an arranged marriage with Chandrakumar. Not able to resist the marriage because of family pressures, she forces herself to marry Chandrakumar against her wishes and desires!

During her marriage rituals, the women surrounding her are busy taking care of the habituated societal rituals that connect with womanhood and marriage. However, Divya’s gaze is locked onto the mirror, entirely detached from the beehive of activity that’s happening all around her. The scene beautifully mirrors her own fractured identity amidst an environment that is trying to define and dictate her life for her.

After their marriage, she has to relocate to Delhi with her husband. Here, Divya remains emotionally detached from Chandrakumar, and inspite of Chandrakumar’s repeated attempts at being kind and empathetic to her, and even wishes to surprise her with a wedding gift, she shocks him by asking for a divorce as her wedding gift.

In this scene, we find Divya all alone in Delhi, curled defensively, clutching her knees and trying to look toward the mirror. Here, the mirror reflects a wounded individual forced to confront her own helplessness and alienation – her fractured sense of self!

In fact, P. C. Sreeram’s masterful cinematography deserves kudos here, for making the mirror come alive as an effective semiotic tool all through the film - to articulate the internal conflict, and the unspoken trauma of the protagonist, Divya.

I suggest that you watch the film to relive these particular scenes.

There’s also this mirror scene where Chandrakumar is shown standing at the dressing table while Divya is seen in the background – a beautiful picture of framing ‘psychological alienation’.

Rather than framing them side-by-side in the room, Maniratnam pans the camera towards the mirror to create this deep psychological distance. Chandrakumar is in the active foreground, preparing for the day, while Divya is relegated to the distant background reflection, appearing passive, withdrawn, and physically small. What a beautiful framing of “spatial alienation!”

The director here makes us visualise the profound disconnect in their shared domestic life. They are together in the reflection, but poles apart in reality, thus “mirroring” the vast psychological gap between them.

Towards the end, there are two redeeming scenes of the protagonist Divya. They capture a profound shift in the psychological transition from a sense of alienation to a profound sense of reconciliation. If you carefully observe here, you will notice that for the first time she smiles looking at herself in the mirror, and then she turns away from the mirror into reality!

What a memorable frame! 😊

Hats off to the director and to the cinematographer for these memorable frames!

Finally, coming to our next film –

I would like to analyse the 2022 Malayalam film titled, Teacher.

The movie Teacher is about the protagonist Devika a physical education teacher who is shown leading a quiet life with her husband, Sujith. One morning, she wakes up completely disoriented. As she pieces together the hazy events of the previous day, she makes a horrifying discovery -  she was drugged and sexually assaulted by a group of college students, who had also filmed the crime on their mobiles. The crisis aggravates when Devika finds out that she is pregnant. She eventually breaks her silence and confesses the assault to her husband. 

However, instead of offering his empathy, Sujith reacts with anger and disgust. Then, prioritising his family’s honour and reputation in society, he outright refuses to father the child and asks her to keep quiet rather than go to the police. However, Devika refuses to be a passive victim. She finds an unexpected pillar of support in her mother-in-law, Kalyani - a firebrand veteran activist, who encourages Devika to stop hiding in shame and to fight back against her abusers. Having externalised her rage and faced her trauma head-on, Devika realises her own inner strength. 

Quite interestingly, Devika from Vivek’s Teacher (2022) has a lot of interesting convergences and divergences with Divya from Mani Ratnam’s Mouna Ragam (1986).

Both Divya and Devika grapple with an intense internal conflict! However, what differs is the nature of the trauma and how they respond or react to it!

While Divya’s intense internal conflict stems from unresolved grief over a lost love and the imposition of a forced marriage, Devika’s trauma is violently imposed through a sexual assault and a leaked video.

Hence, Divya’s silence could connote withdrawal and passive resistance, while Devika’s silence here could symbolise her sense of shock and shame at being violated.

Devika’s husband tries to hush things up, thinking of his family’s reputation. This way, he lacks genuine empathy for his wife. In fact, he is attempting to make her “erase” her trauma without making her “face” the trauma!

Staring into the mirror then becomes an act of facing the trauma head-on, refusing to avert her eyes, in order to shatter the “victim” identity that’s been forced upon her.

The director, in a subtle and masterful frame, tells his viewers that, Devika’s healing cannot come through passive acceptance. She must actively face her deep sense of shock and shame that has been forced upon her, by transitioning from a traumatised victim into an active, vengeful agent. Her intense internal conflict is only resolved when she externalises her rage.

This frame here when she looks at herself in the mirror, happens just before she externalises her rage against her attackers.

To conclude then, whether it is Divya or Devika, as regards films, the mirror has always served as a rich hermeneutic space, reflecting the trauma of the divided self!

For both the women, the mirror is not only symbolic of victimhood, but also the pathway to healing, reconciliation, or reclamation or even rebellion, whatever the case may be, in order to piece themselves back together!

James Baldwin’s lovely quote I’m sure would be apt to sign off on this post -

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

Lovely, ain’t it? 😊

“History doesn't always repeat itself, but it often rhymes!” ❤️

The Story of Elections to Three States & One Union Territory!

Uncanny Similarities in Kerala and Puducherry!

Bolt-from-the-blue Surprises in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal!

10th May 2001

From my personal diary entry, 25 years ago!

#memoriesfromdiaries

On this particular day, exactly 25 years ago, Assembly elections were held for the three states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, and Pondicherry (UT).

All four elections had their own share of uncanny similarities and shocking surprises in store!

Coming first to Tamil Nadu –

In Tamil Nadu, in the year 2001, even before the elections began, there was a huge crisis on the cards!

Yes, the crisis centred around the leader of the AIADMK, Ms. J. Jayalalithaa. Just weeks ahead of the TN elections in 2001, Ms. Jayalalithaa’s nomination papers across four different constituencies were outrightly rejected by the Returning Officers. The reason??? her conviction in the TANSI land deal case, which carried a prison sentence of more than two years, and which by default legally disqualified her from contesting under the Representation of the People Act.

However, Ms. Jayalalithaa, instead of backing out, played the victim card, calling it a political conspiracy by the then ruling DMK Chief Minister, Mr. M. Karunanidhi.

The victim card surprisingly worked to her favour, and to everyone’s surprise, the AIADMK-led alliance swept the state, winning 196 out of 234 seats. And although she did not contest even a single seat and even after being legally disqualified, Jayalalithaa was unanimously elected as the leader of the legislative party and was sworn in as Chief Minister by Governor Fathima Beevi, triggering a huge constitutional crisis. You may want to read about this entire saga on our past blogpost HERE.

In September 2001, however, the Supreme Court struck down Ms. Jayalalitha’s appointment as unconstitutional, forcing her to temporarily step down and quickly install her devout loyalist, O. Panneerselvam, as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

25 years later, in Tamil Nadu, the 2001 Dravidian bipolar contest has almost come to an end this year because of a massive political earthquake that has surprised even pollsters.

Actor Vijay’s newly formed Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) stunned political veterans by emerging as the single largest party, securing 108 out of 234 seats and pushing the ruling DMK (59 seats) and AIADMK (47 seats) to a distant second and third positions respectively.

I am neither a political pundit nor a political analyst, 😊but I would like to draw your attention to some striking surprises in the vote share in the year 2001 -

In 2001, DMK in TN had a good vote share - 30.90% - but it could manage only 31 seats, while

On the other hand, AIADMK had a very marginal rise – a mere 0.5% rise - in vote share - 31.4% - but it could win a record 132 seats!

How-o-how! 😊

Can you imagine just a mere 0.5% difference in vote share could lead to a difference of 101 seats! Quite surprising, ain’t it?

Well, that’s where alliance arithmetic helps, you see!

Ms. Jayalalithaa was able to cobble up a ‘Mega Alliance’ by a grand coalition of parties, which included the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC), Indian National Congress (INC), Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), CPI, and CPM.

On the other hand, in 2001, the DMK, was part of the NDA - allied with the BJP and a few smaller parties, but it lacked the strength and the numbers of AIADMK’s coalition.

Hence, when voters went to the polls, the supporters of the TMC, Congress, PMK, and the Left transferred their votes entirely to the AIADMK candidate in the seats where AIADMK was contesting. This guaranteed that AIADMK candidates were winning in most of the constituencies.

Bespeaks to the power of cobbling up a grand coalition!

You may also want to read our past post on how DMK lost power because they didn’t want to take on board just one party – the MDMK, - on our past post HERE.

Compare the situation today in the TN 2026 elections –

DMK in TN has a vote share of 24.19% - winning 59 seats,

AIADMK has a vote share of 21% - winning 47 seats.

TVK has a vote share of 34.92% - winning 108 seats.

Coming now to Kerala -

In 2001, in Kerala, the UDF under the Congress party created a historic landmark of sorts! Led by A.K. Antony, the Congress-led UDF crushed the incumbent LDF, winning 99 seats. It was a landmark election because the Indian National Congress (INC) emerged as the single largest party with 63 seats!

Exactly 25 years later, in 2026, the UDF has yet again stormed back to power, ousting the LDF! Even more remarkably, the Congress once again became the single largest party in the state assembly, securing exactly the same 63 seats that it had won in 2001! A bit of an uncanny coincidence, ain’t it? 😊

Coming now to West Bengal -

In West Bengal, the Left Front swept to power in 2001, in spite of a very formidable opposition – the formidable alliance of Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and the INC! 

Quite interestingly, much of the media had predicted the downfall of the Left since they felt people were frustrated with the Left after having given them power for 24 long years! However, to everyone’s surprise, the CPI(M)-led Left Front under Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee secured a commanding 199 out of 294 seats, winning a record-breaking sixth consecutive term with a two-thirds majority.

The Left Front got a vote share of 49%. The BJP was barely a factor back then, as it did not win any seat. The party contested in 266 constituencies and garnered 19,01,351 votes, resulting in a 5.19% vote share, but couldn’t secure any seat.

In the year 2026, the BJP achieved its long-standing dream of winning West Bengal for the first time, and got a decisive mandate, ending Mamata’s 15-year rule by winning a commanding 207 out of 294 seats to form its first-ever government in the state, with a record vote share of 45.84%, while the CPM, got a vote share of just around 4.5%

The Left Front, which dominated 2001, was nearly wiped out in 2026, winning just a single seat.

In Kerala and Puducherry, the 2026 elections perfectly mirrored the 2001 elections.

While in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal unexpected political surprises awaited the people, with TVK and BJP respectively, storming to power for the first time ever!

Looking back at the political landscape of over 25 years ago and comparing it with the situation today, we have Kerala and Puducherry, where history has almost photocopied its own electoral verdict to a tee! 😊

On the other hand, in Tamil Nadu and in West Bengal the electorate has given a verdict for a sea-change of sorts!

I would like to sum up these uncanny similarities and shocking surprises through Mark Twain’s lovely line –

History doesn't always repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

In the vibrant landscape of Indian politics, sometimes history repeats, sometimes it rhymes, and sometimes…

… it just throws away the good ol’ script and writes an entirely new song! 😊

We call it the dance of democracy! 😊

A Drive from Darkness to Light | A Visual Masterclass | Today ❤️

Just Look Up! | What the Clouds Taught Me Today

#incampustoday #intothewoods

8th May 2026

Driving down the State Highway towards Campus today, I found myself captivated by a silent companion who was tailgating me all along! - a stunning cloud formation that followed me all the way to Campus! 😊

This lovely sight impulsively brought to my mind two things –

Firstly, it took me back to 2018 - to our blog discussions HERE on our blog, on The Cloud Appreciation Society and their vibrant Manifesto!

I couldn’t help but think of Gavin Pretor-Pinney’s lovely categorisation of the sky’s inhabitants. Even as I was driving, I kept watching out for his three distinct tiers 😊

The Low Clouds: Those “cotton wool tufts” that bloom on a sunny day.

The Middle Clouds: Looking like endless “layers of bread rolls” across the horizon.

The High Clouds: Those “delicate streaks of falling ice crystals” brushing against the edge of space.

Secondly, what struck me the most, was the dramatic transition! In no time, the heavy, brooding dark clouds transitioned so quickly to a vast, graceful and luminous sky blue!

In fact, it was a stunning visual masterclass on the “Philosophy of the Passing Clouds”.

This quick transitioning from darkness to light made me ponder about this profound philosophy behind the “passing clouds”.

Like the clouds over Tambaram, our emotions – be it happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise, etc., - are also transient by nature!

They are visitors, not inhabitants! True peace happens only when we treat them as passing clouds rather trying to “fix” them!

Mindfulness helps us cultivate this art of detachment! We don’t have to engage with them or be controlled by them!

By recognising the transitory nature of our emotions, we can stop trying to hold onto the mist! 😊

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that while the weather keeps changing every hour of the day, the sky remains - vast, blue, calm, cool, and unaffected.

Your essence is the sky, not the fleeting clouds passing through it! 😊

So whenever negative thoughts or emotions arise – which is quite natural - you don’t have to invite them over for a cup of coffee! 😊

Instead, just place those anxieties onto a cloud and simply watch the wind carry them away. You don’t have to engage with them; you can just let them pass!

Cos, as the renowned Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron says -

“You are the sky. Everything else - it’s just the weather.”

Would love to end this post with the immortal lines of Tagore –

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sky.”

Cool! Ain’t it? 😊

“Open my heart and you will see / Graved inside of it, ‘Italy’” ❤️

Born to Wander: The Transnational Journeys of Tagore, Browning, and Jhabvala

This morning, we had a rewarding time discussing collaborations and global engagement with senior officials from Deakin University, Australia.

What’s quite interesting about today’s interactions is that, Deakin made history by becoming the very first foreign university in the world to establish an international teaching campus in India – in Gujarat - followed by University of Wollongong (Australia).

I was quite surprised and wonder-amazed at this fascinating shift! From students migrating to better pastures abroad for their higher studies, to those very same global universities coming all the way to India, to set up physical campuses - it’s indeed been a paradigm shift of sorts!

Bespeaks to the importance of transnational education made available to our students at just 1/3rd of the costs.

The initiative is a bold and welcome move, as it solves the problem of academic access, and makes available transnational education at our doorsteps.

At the same time, however, I personally feel that, in a way, it dilutes the profound cultural and geographical immersion that comes from physically crossing borders - that transnational travel seeks to endow our students with!

It could be navigating our way through a foreign grocery store, decode local slang, or connecting with new people - this geographic displacement that accompanies such travels are quite essential to shaping one’s perspectives and ‘world’views, ain’t it?

Again, today I had calls and messages from our students who are currently in Japan and in Korea, describing their adventurous experiences in navigating their way to the local grocery, the weather, the food, the people, and yes, the little earthquakes that gave them that little lubtub moments, etc. 😊

Indeed, I personally feel that, such transnational travels help in discovering ourselves!

In this regard, let’s do a quick take on how these transnational travels have helped three great writers – who are celebrating their birthdays today – Tagore, Browning, and Jhabvala – who were able to experience their authentic voices by stepping outside their familiar boundaries, and thereby were able to uncover hidden facets of their own identities when they stepped outside of their comfort zone!

#onhisbirthdaytoday #onherbirthdaytoday

7th May 2026

Yes, today happens to be the birthday of three literary giants - Robert Browning, Rabindranath Tagore, and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

And although all three writers come from different literary traditions, one particular aspect that unites them all is the fact that, all three of them were great travellers whose travel experiences have inspired and impacted their writing much-o-much!

First and foremost, let’s take up Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore!

Although Tagore was deeply rooted in the Bengal landscape, he was a frequent global traveller as well!

In fact, his visits to over 30 countries across five continents between 1878 and 1932 have deeply influenced his writing and worldview. His trips - that were sometimes months-long or even years-long, were more than mere vacations. They were experiences that shaped his thought-processes, his world-views and his personality for the better!

England in particular was Tagore’s most frequent destination, where he was exposed to English literature, Western classical music, and British society.

During his long stays here, he made use of the opportunity to interact with the English literary giants of the time - including W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound - leading to the publication of Gitanjali and his subsequent Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

In fact it was Yeats who wrote the Introduction to his Gitanjali.

He also travelled five times to the US, staying there for many months to lecture, meet intellectuals, and raise funds for his school in Santiniketan.

He spent several months living in Urbana, Illinois, where his son Rathindranath was studying agriculture at the University of Illinois. This was one of the most productive periods of his writing!

He also undertook a lot of lecture tours in the US!

Then, he travelled to Argentina, which was one of his most romanticised staycations! 😊

The famous Argentine writer Victoria Ocampo, who was also a devoted admirer of Tagore’s work, hosted him for two months at the Villa Ocampo! And this sylvan residency, literally rejuvenated him. Under this spell, he started writing a host of poems dedicated to Ocampo!

He then visited Japan where he lived for a month, during which time he developed a deep admiration for Japanese aesthetics, traditional arts, and the Shinto reverence for nature.

After his Japanese travels, he embarked on a high-profile tour of China, lecturing in Beijing and interacting with leading Chinese intellectuals like Liang Qichao, attempting to bridge Indian and Chinese philosophical traditions.

After this, throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, Tagore toured Europe continuously, meeting with luminaries like Albert Einstein in Germany and Romain Rolland in Switzerland. In 1930, he also made a trip to the Soviet Union, staying in Moscow. He was deeply fascinated by their massive educational campaigns and agricultural cooperatives!

To Tagore, travelling was never about tourism! it was an educative experience, philosophical experience and a therapeutic experience as well. On this account, he viewed himself as a global citizen - a Visva-Kabi (World Poet) – aimed at breaking down the narrow walls of hatred and prejudice and create a “world where the mind is without fear and the head is held high.”

Before he set out on his extensive travels, much of his work was deeply embedded in the specific cultural and political milieu of Bengal. However, as he moved across Europe, America(s), and Asia, his writing began to reflect a universalist perspective.

He then started envisioning literature not as a national product, but as a global dialogue!

You may want to read our past post where Tagore talks about Visva Sahitya HERE on our blog.

Secondly, let’s take up Browning - Robert Browning!

Although Browning was English, his greatest creative period occurred during his travels abroad, especially during his fifteen years’ stay in Italy. Here, he learnt a lot of Italian history, Renaissance art, and local culture, and from this vantage ‘foreign’ space, he was able to look at Victorian society from an insider-outsider’s perspective!

At the same time, it’s quite important to note that, while Tagore travelled across five continents and visited over thirty countries, Browning’s travels were almost exclusively confined to the European continent. Instead of globe-trotting or globe-hopping, Browning preferred deep, prolonged immersion in specific cultures, which had a profound influence on his poetry.

In short, Italy may be said to be the centre of Browning’s creative and personal life. Following his famous secret marriage and elopement with Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1846 (fleeing her tyrannical father), the couple moved to Italy and stayed there for fifteen years.

They frequently spent summers escaping the Florentine heat in Siena or the Apennine mountains, and spent significant time in Rome and Venice. Browning’s love for Italy was so profound that upon his death, he was living in his son’s home in Venice in 1889. He famously wrote, “Open my heart and you will see / Graved inside of it, ‘Italy’.”

France was Browning’s second most visited foreign country. After their secret wedding, Robert and Elizabeth initially fled to Paris before making their way south to Italy. After Elizabeth died in 1861, Browning returned to London. However, he frequently spent his summers in France, particularly in the coastal regions of Brittany and Normandy, enjoying the rugged landscapes which inspired several of his later poems.

Before he became a famous poet, a 21-year-old Browning undertook an adventurous trip to the Russian Empire. He travelled there as secretary to the Russian consul-general, journeying by ship to Rotterdam, then traveling overland by coach through vast stretches of snow to St. Petersburg. Although he only stayed about three months, the vast, wintry landscapes and the political atmosphere left a lasting impression, heavily influencing his early long poems like Sordello and later works like Ivàn Ivànovitch.

Browning also spent time in the Swiss Alps. He and Elizabeth sometimes traveled through Switzerland en route between England and Italy, and he returned there occasionally in his later, post-Italy years for summer holidays.

Now let’s look at Jhabvala - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala! 

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s relationship with international travel was quite different. She lived and travelled across four entirely different countries - Germany, England, India, and the United States - and these were more of geographical displacements than travels, and these displacements impacted and influenced her writing style to a great extent.

Jhabvala was born in Germany to a Jewish family and was forced to flee to England in 1939 as a refugee from the Nazi regime. This early, traumatic uprooting instilled in her a lifelong sense of exile, that could be evidenced in the theme of perpetual rootlessness, that’s part and parcel of almost all her writings, including her poignant 1966 autobiographical essay titled, “Myself in India”.

As a result of this perpetual rootlessness, she described herself as a person with “no roots.” Consequently, almost all of her fiction centres on characters who are spiritually or physically displaced. Whether they are European refugees, Western spiritual seekers in the East, or Indians navigating post-colonial shifts, her protagonists are typically outsiders searching for a sense of belonging that forever eludes them.

In the year 1951, she married an Indian architect and moved to Delhi, where she lived for 24 years. This relocation produced her most famous body of work, including her Booker Prize-winning novel Heat and Dust.

Her final major migration was to New York in 1975, a city where she finally felt comfortable!

Well, all three writers - then - describe the human condition and the human psyche when it is caught between colliding cultures, and all three of them were able to describe the transnational experience in their own unique ways through their oeuvre.

That’s hence, on careful analysis of their writing, one can see in all three writers – a rejection of a singular, omniscient, and reliable authorial voice, thereby disrupting the concept of a monolithic, mono-cultural literary identity, and embraced polyphony, instead, allowing their characters to reveal their own psychological landscapes!

In short, the most significant writings of all these three literary giants – born on this day – 7th May - exemplify the transnational human condition - living at the intersection of differing cultures, and thereby acting as literary bridges while navigating the complexities of displacement!

Literary bridges! 😊 Sounds lovely, isn’t it?

You may want to read more on the concept of literary bridges, in our past blogpost HERE.

If you are a travel buff, you may also want to read our Six-Part Travel Writing Series that we did HERE on our blog way back in the year 2018.