THE PARADOX!!

Almost after a fanatic search operation which lasted for more than 26 hours, the search operation forces were able to finally declare that the copter carrying the Andhra chief minister, YS Rajashekar Reddy had crashed into a hill and 5 bodies including YSR’s were recovered from the crash site. The search was helped by an unlikely clue – a delivered SMS (after the contacts on the copter were lost) to one of the cell phones on the copter, yes a cell phone the only thing on board which survived the attack. Tracing the mobile towers from where the SMS was delivered, the search was limited to a 4 sq km area, a much smaller area compared to the 750 sq km which was earlier funneled by the calculations by the copter’s last contact point. YSR was certainly the man of the masses and he dedicated his life to the betterment of the farmers – Cut the crap, I am not paying homage to the late chief minister. Instead from the time, I have been bombarded with the news of YSR missing, I am wondering, what would be Vijayalakshmi’s reaction?
For those of who are new to Vijayalakshmi, here is an extract from one of my earlier blogs on the Indian Obama dated May 17, 2009.
“I met VijayaLakshmi, during one of my rare visits to a temple in Tirupati (that makes it even rarer). We were awaiting our turn to visit the holy almighty in one of the waiting halls. This wait was for about 6 hours from 4 pm to 10 pm and this gave a rare opportunity to interact with VijayaLakshmi and also a chance to recall some episodes of Ramanand Sagar’s RAMAYAN (The waiting halls have TVs where in Ramayan was aired). There was nothing common between me and VijayaLakshmi and the only common language that we knew was sign language and she could interpret some broken Hindi words and this aspect made our communication very interesting and challenging. Very seldom were we able to get what she was telling us in her first three attempts and I took even more to convey what I intended. VijayaLakshmi hailed from a village near Rajmundhry and was certainly not my age. She had a son who was atleast 5 years elder to me and had married only 2 days ago. They were visiting Tirupati to seek blessings for the newly married couple. The groom actually ran a cycle puncture shop in their village and his mother went to work in somebody else farm to earn about 30 Rs per day. The groom was busy with his wife but the mother-in-law was in full Josh and together we discussed a lot of issues including Andhra food, their culture, the difference between their marriage rituals and ours etc. However when short of topics to discuss, I thought of opening up Andhra politics to her. I asked her what she thought of YSR - YS RajShekhar Reddy, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. Little did I know that I was on the right path, but entered a wrong way. I say that because she was very much into active politics but was a die hard fan of Chandra Babu Naidu. She was a active member and was occupying a position in the TDP’s village level organization. She had participated in cycle rallies for the campaign of Chandrababu Naidu in the last election. I asked her why she preferred Naidu over Reddy when Reddy offers her so many goodies like subsidized supply of rice and other grains, free electricity etc. She did try her best to explain some of the reasons for preferring Naidu, but I was not able to assimilate very less of what she intended to convey. The only take away that hit me from this discussion, she was so fond of Naidu that she had not availed the facility of the monthly rice quota of 10 kg at a rate of 3 Rs per kg even once, just because it was offered by Naidu’s rival. Such is the level of dedication and loyalty to a political leader. Surprisingly the same leader is always projected by the Indian media as one of those who was pro-urban and anti-rural in his stint as CM. Such a contrast picture from what is the ground reality. The Prannoy Roys, the Barkhas and the Rajdeeps however hard they try would not be able to project the entire Indian perspective. VijayaLakshmi is just one of the billions who happened to meet me in Luck by Chance visit. At the end of my encounter, I just had to salute her and the Great Indian Voter who has just taken democracy to a next level for sure. This encounter is still freshly etched in my memory even though it is almost 36 months since I met VijayaLakshmi.”
Once she hears this piece of news – Would she be elated to hear that her leader’s main rival is no more? Would her wrath tone down just because YSR is no more? Would she resort to availing the facility of the popular schemes since Naidu yesterday announced that YSR was a great administrator? Would her loyalty towards Naidu grow up or wither down just because he praised his rival? – So many queries that only VijayLakshmi can answer? Sometimes in life, there are personalities who would leave their mark with a lone glance that you only need a reason to evoke their thoughts and yet on the other hand, there are so many near and dear ones who almost walk with you the entire life and yet we hardly bother to cherish them.