There was a depression in the Arabian Sea, but the people of Trivandrum were not depressed at all. Good showers in May, the hottest month of the year when most parts of the country were reeling under the heat wave, were a real blessing. It was drizzling when I reached Cliff House, the official residence of Kerala Chief Minister E K Nayanar. There was something still and serene about Cliff House that day, unpretentious and uncomplicated too. The place was desolate except for a couple of guards posted outside the gate and three men from the staff sitting idly in the verandah. One could feel an uneasy calm and silence in the atmosphere. It was my second visit to Cliff House and I was struck by the contrast in the mood! Congress leader K Karunakaran was chief minister when I first visited Cliff House. Khadi-clad men (Congressmen, of course) spilled over the whole area, outside Cliff House, on its lawns and inside the spacious living room. As they had occupied every inch of available space, one could see only a sea of white everywhere. And it was just another day, but the size of the sycophantic crowd was formidable. The moment Karunakaran, clad in a clean towel,s came out, surrounded by hordes of people, for his daily swim in the swimming pool, there was mad commotion all over, with Congressmen violently rushing to be close to the 'leader'. (If you are not aware of the swimming pool controversy, the story goes like this. After a serious car accident, and several days in the hospital, the CM was advised to swim everyday. A swimming pool was ready inside the yards of Cliff House immediately and it created a lot of controversy too.) Those who were at the periphery of the circle jostled and pushed the others frantically. Karunakaran, a short man, was almost invisible in the midst of the mad, frenzied crowd. sAlthough I enjoyed watching the acts of sycophancy, I felt a tinge of sympathy and pity for the man who had to undergo such an ordeal daily. Perhaps he enjoyed it. The same rushing and pushing and jostling was repeated when he was back after 45 minutes in the pool. After more than an hour's wait, I was summoned to the chief minister's room. Everything in the room was immaculately clean and stainless. The soft smell of talcum power welcomed me when I entered the air-conditioned room. And Karunakaran looked refined and elegantly clean in his white starched dhoti and shirt. What a contrast, I muttered again. The present Cliff House had no glitter, no glamour and no appeal. It looked more like the house of a commoner than that of the most important person in the state. No, I had not forgotten the fact that Kerala has a Communist chief minister and not a Congress one. We waited in the chief minister's office room as he was upstairs talking to someone. A brief survey of the room startled me mildly. Yes, I was taken aback again by the contrast. Most of the furniture looked worn out, broken and uncared for. The only clock in the room was static, unmindful of the passing time. Time stood still in 1997 in one of the calendars but it had reached April 1999 in another one. Did the chief minister want to stop the cruel time, which never waited for anyone? I pondered silently. My sister, a news presenter with the Trivandrum Doordarshan Kendra, had also accompanied me. As we debated the idea of stopping time, the chief minister's daughter entered the room with her daughter. "We came to see you," she said. Before I could smile politely and graciously, she said she had come to see the television personality, that is, my sister, and not me! After the mother and daughter duo disappeared, Sarada teacher, the chief minister's wife appeared and said pleasantly, "All of us know you." No, it was not about me that she was referring to again. The chief minister's "right hand man", a Warrier, then came to announce that it would take some more time for the chief minister to meet me. Soon Sarada teacher and myself were gossiping about Malayalam films and Manju Warrier (a top actress who stopped acting prematurely, after her marriage to another actor, Dilip). Sarada teacher was a great fan of Manju Warrier and she had not missed a single film of hers! She also had not forgiven the man who put an end to the remarkable film career of an extremely gifted young girl. "It is sad that such a talented girl had to stop acting," she said sadly. By then, Warrier came to take us to the top floor. He lamented, "The CM says there is a nexus between the Warriers and I arranged the interview because you are a Warrier." The fact was that I did not know the "right hand man" till then, and my interview was arranged by the chief minister's press secretary, Prabha Varma! The chief minister was in a very pleasant mood and joked about Madras and its climate. Once he started answering my questions, he chose to look straight at my sister and not me. It was quite a tough task for me to nod to his answers and then ask questions when he was looking straight at somebody else. Perhaps he liked only familiar faces! His cool demeanour changed only when I asked him about the Left's decision to support a Congress-led government. He was pretty angry by then and suddenly his PA, Murali stepped in and asked me rather rudely to wind up the interview as the chief minister had talked for more than hour when he was advised rest by his doctor! His next meeting was with one Balakrishnan. As we walked out of the room, Balakrishnan, an old man, walked in solemnly and respectfully. "Balakrishna, you are a number one cheat!" We heard the chief minister's thundering voice behind us. It was still drizzling outside. Shobha Warrier's interview with E K Nayanar will appear on these pages shortly.
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