Any photojournalist who has spent time for quite a few years, will always have a tale to tell. They certainly would have had their moment, an
iconic picture of a personality in their collection that is worth cherishing.
In my career, I have covered many such characters, but
nothing worth mentioning. There were
leaders like Ramakrishna Hegde, JH Patel among others, who are fresh in my mind
because of their characters.
Yes, Jayalalithaa of course, but for the wrong reasons. By
now we all know so many things on her as for last two days, almost all the
media houses are digging up stories and hard selling it as ‘Things you never
knew about Jaya’ blah…blah.
For me, memories of Jayalalithaa and BS Yeddyurappa will
remain forever. Because, till date, these were the only two chief minsters who
were prisoned on allegations of corruption. And, i had the misfortune of being witness to these occurring.
I have had my exclusive moments in both the cases. It was on
a Thursday night in mid-September, 2004 when I came to know about Jayalalithaa’s
articles arriving at City Civil Court. The scheduled time of arrival was at 4am
in the morning. By 3am I was at the court steps on a chilly Friday morning. The
cargo arrived by 6 and it was an exclusive for Deccan Herald. The case that
started in September 2004 saw the end of it with Jayalalithaa’s conviction in a
trail court in Parappana, again in the month of September 2014. I did cover
Jayalalithaa’s appearance in court in 2011 and in 2014 when she was convicted.
I had her last image when she waved goodbye to the gathering supporters after
procuring bail. The last image of the iconic leader that I clicked.
One thing I have to confess here. There were leaders who had
mass following and some do have even now. But, the kind of diehard followers this
lady has speaks of volumes about her character. I have never seen the devotion
of this magnitude to any other politician in my career.
And this lady, despite her health problems chose to spend
time in jail until she got a bail without faking heart attacks or
breathlessness. That was Jayalalithaa which I know.
Unlike Yeddyurappa, who was brought to Jayadeva hospital
with chest pain the very day he was imprisoned. A soon I got wind of the story,
I rushed to Jayadeva Hospital, because of my presence, Police had to cover
their VIP patient with a white cloth and deployed around 20 odd policemen to
physically throw me off from clicking pictures. But by then, I had my moments
and it was a page 1 exclusive with my first person account in DNA Bangalore.
