What we can learn from Jayalalithaa’s life!

One of the reasons for me to stop attending weddings was because people came up with unsolicited advice on the importance of marriage and now that people have began using bereavements and funerals to hound me with the same message; I am thinking of putting an end to attending funerals.

On Tuesday noon I received a call from my former neighbor whom I hadn’t seen her in the last five years, but earlier in the day I recognized her on the television as she paid her tributes to the former Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa’s body at Rajaji Hall. After short exchanges about CMs demise, she quickly began advising me on getting married and how it provided a safety net so that I don’t end up like Jayalalithaa. I was tongue-tied as I hadn’t expected this call to take such a turn. Moreover, I wasn’t interested to argue with her or convince her of my choice. Instead, I moved the conversation away from the topic of marriage and disproving parallels drawn from Jayalalithaa’s life and her singlehood.

Apart from this conversation, what I watched on the television and read in the online media got me thinking more about family and singlehood. Does singlehood bring sorrow and does marriage and family provide one with a safety net and peace?

That evening I made my regular check-point call to my maternal grandparents, who are in their 80s. They shared their grief from watching Jayalalithaa’s funeral and their anxiety getting a decent funeral when they die. Feeling their anguish, I assured them that a corpus was available to give them a grand farewell without cutting corners or taking short-cuts and that I will be the back-up in case their son derelicts his duty.

Unfortunately, marriage and family didn’t put their insecurities to rest (my grandmother wants my grandfather to pass away before her, while my grandfather wants to live till her great grandson’s wedding) and their family (son, daughter-in-law and grand children) have been neglecting them for over a decade, while living off their wealth like a leech. I wanted to call back my former neighbor to share this example and prove to her that her theory of marriage and family doesn’t guarantee anything in reality.

A few hours after Jayalalithaa’s burial, the online media was rife with rumors that her 110 crore assets is being usurped by Sasikala and family. If only AIADMK Party Supremo Jayalalithaa had left a Will behind with an executor, there would be no blaming of her kin from a 28-year long association and giving them no room for foul play or media to speculate. Moreover, Jayalalithaa enjoying the goodwill, loyalty and prayers of her cadres, didn’t care about their future in her absence. Did her political advisor Cho also fail to advice on this front? Today, she left the party and state without a succession planning giving rise to infighting and disappointing the cadres and reminding us of this song Ethanayo peyirukku from the movie Vanthale Maharasi and making the lines “Adhigara peyigal irukkudhada adhu sadhikaara gumbalai valarkudhada more relevant.

Though we don’t want any stake in my maternal grandparents’ wealth and I’ve been asking them to make a will so that it solves a lot of blame, heart-burn and legal entanglements after their time.  

Both disease and death come uninvited and unplanned. In the last 75 days before her death, Jayalalithaa was off and on ventilator and finally after suffering a cardiac arrest, going through CPR, having  heart massaged and put on ECMO life support before being pronounced dead 15 hours later. Why did the convent educated Jayalalithaa not think about putting down her living will and informing her physician? That would have saved her dearest friend Sasikala from having to make all those tough medical decisions and getting blamed by the media and public for being secretive, private and hasty. 

Though my grandmother feels anxious about her funeral and looks impractical for not drafting her will, but sounds just the opposite when it comes to her living will. She has verbally told us and her physician that she doesn’t want to suffer or be kept alive especially when she is terminally ill, put on ventilator or declared brain dead.

Increasingly families are becoming nuclear, marriages are breaking down quickly, people staying single for long and longevity improving by a decade, we must make our future decisions today and not depend on others to sort out our mess later. With death being certain, inevitable and unpredictable, you have to be ready with your will and living will so that you don’t leave your family and friends in quandary. 

So, rather than hounding people to get married and start a family, let’s remind them of the importance to get their will and living will in place before we begin our final journey.