On December 5, 2016, the day Tamil Nadu's sixtime chief minister Jayalalithaa died, Sion's Paul Nagarajan shaved his head. Soon, the black-red-and-white border symbolizing his dyed-in-thewool fealty to AIADMK disappeared from the white veshti of this Tamil shop owner and so did the photo of "Amma" that used to jut out of his shirt pocket at all times.
"She was an iron lady. Had she been alive, she would've been the PM," says the 41-year-old native of Thiruvarur district who is fondly referred to as 'Mumbai Paul' as a hat-tip to his backstory. Paul had arrived in Mumbai as a frail teenager in 1996 "with barely one pair of clothes" and soon became the moustachioed owner of a men's wear shop each in Dharavi and in Thiruvarur, where he is now preparing to cast his vote for the upcoming TN elections on April 6.
For the first time, Mumbai Paul will trek up to the voting booth in a border-less veshti to vote for a party other than AIADMK: Naam Tamilar Katchi, a Tamil nationalist party, which "does not encourage joblessness by distributing free rations and TV sets". In his gut, though, Paul knows who will win. "90 per cent DMK," he says.
That's more or less the aggregate prophecy of many of the Tamil residents and entrepreneurs of Dharavi who have returned to their native towns to cast their votes. The elections are being fought in the absence of the state's two larger-than-life figureheads: DMK's M Karunanidhi and AIADMK's Jayalalithaa.
In a different time, this dutiful election-season voyage would've had the aura of a carnival for these Tamilians. However, Covid-19 has not cast a profound shadow over their mood and raised their expectations. "Total loss, madam," paraphrases Paul who incurred losses to the tune of Rs 10 lakh during the lockdown.
Dharavi resident Michael Nadar had carried baggage--both emotional and real--when he appeared at his parents' doorstep in Thirunelveli after losing his Thanebased elder brother to Covid on May 21 last year. "I didn't get to see his face," says Michael, who had identified the plastic-shrouded body of his 46-year-old sibling at a Thane hospital.
Still haunted by thoughts of the premature demise Michael, a work-from-home employee ensconced in the peace of his green hometown, concedes that TN's AIADMK government handled the pandemic better than Maharashtra did. "But that may not help it win the elections," says the advertising professional who believes DMK president M K Stalin would become the next chief minister.
Besides, its contributions to higher education and small-scale industries in TN might just tilt the luck in DMK's favour, feels Srithar Tamilan of Mumbai Vizhithezhu Iyakkam (MVI)--an association of Tamil residents of Dharavi--which has sent a list of demands on behalf of Maharashtra's 25-lakh-odd Tamil migrants to parties contesting the TN elections. "If our votes are required, our demands should be incorporated into election manifesto," states the letter, which seeks Tamil-medium education for students up to standard 10 and a separate ministry to maintain records of migrants outside the state.
"When the lockdown was announced in March, around 4,000 migrant labourers from TN were stranded in Maharashtra.
We faced challenges in helping them as we didn't have the exact figures," reveals Srithar, a native of Thirunelveli's Pattamadai village, whose letter also seeks an increase in the frequency of trains from Mumbai to Tamil Nadu. "At the moment, there are only 15 trains from Mumbai to TN when there are 25 trains going to Kerala, a smaller state," says Srithar.
With its assortment of actors and unfailing shower of freebies, the TN elections have always been a vibrant vortex of mass hysteria. Dharavi-based press photographer Ravi Nadar has followed this seasonal political circus with childlike glee and is among the few who puts his money on CM Edappadi Palaniswami's return.