*It is fromTheHindu*
*RamaKrishnan Thyagarajan*
*Eelam Tamils*
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It was a Monday, exactly 14 years ago. Around 8 am, I got a call from the then Chief Minister MK. He began his conversation, by saying that "I thank you on behalf of Thiruvalluvar."
That day, the front page of my paper had a report along with a picture, , featuring him and Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa during the unveiling of Thiruvalluvar statue in Bengaluru.
I immediately made use of the opportunity to request him for an one-on-one interview. "You tell me when do you want it? I would set apart time for you" was his response. Somehow, that didn't materialise then.
Four years later, on the day (March 19, 2013) he announced his party's pull out from the UPA regime, the one-to-one interview materialised. It was an eventful day and yet, he agreed to meet me in the evening. I was allotted 10 minutes. He had to go to his dentist after meeting me. Eventually, the interview went on for more than 30 minutes.
At the time of the interview, the present Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, the present Water Resources Minister Durai Murugan and K.S. Radhakrishnan, no longer in the party, were present.
In the early part of the interview, I found that my tape recorder wasn't working. So, I started taking notes of all what he spoke.
I could not understand his reply to my question. When asked to elaborate again, he did not mind explaining to me in detail. And, he did it patiently.
My last interaction with him was in December 2014, a few months before I was posted to Sri Lanka. It was in the evening that I got a call from him. In the morning, I wrote a piece on the finances of the Tamil Nadu government. It was a strongly-worded piece, going by my standards.
He wanted a copy of the document that I had quoted. I replied to him that I had used what was tabled on the floor of the House earlier that month. "You seem to be going through meticulously all the documents that are presented to the Assembly. Well, one more thing. Do not use a strong language in your writing. Exercise restraint in the deployment of words. Let the content speak itself." was his advice.
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