It was a welcome befitting a President at the very least. In fact, it was a welcome that was head and shoulders above anything that Pranab Mukherjee garnered during his last tour to Chennai, last month. But then, it's Narendra Modi we're talking about.
With multiple sets of dancers in Rajasthani garb, hordes of people tapping their hearts out on the drums and practically everybody sporting saffron on some part of their body, the stage was set. "We have come all the way from Kancheepuram to see the future Prime Minister. My husband said that the heat would be too much for the children, but I would not listen to anything. Modi is our hope," said an ecstatic Soundari, who had brought her two children to the airport. A lower-level BJP functionary, she was amongst 3000 people from several units of the BJP from Chennai and it's outlying areas like Villupuram, Vellore and Chengalpet. They had all assembled by 1 pm and sweated it out patiently.
To his credit, Narendra Modi didn't keep the crowd waiting for a minute longer than his schedule had promised. His chartered flight from Ahmedabad landed at the VIP gate (No 5) and by 3.28 pm, the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate briskly made it out to the dais set there. Despite the mercury at Meenambakkam inching past the 37 degrees Celsius mark, it wasn't the raw Chennai heat that set people alight at the airport complex - it was the sight of the Gujarat Prime Minister that did the trick, especially when be began with a crisp "Vanakkam".
Addressing a crowd that almost entirely did not understand Hindi, it was the man's fiery mannerisms and the Tamil translation that reaally set the ball rolling, "People in urban India refuse to believe it. But there is a wave of change rising here in Tamil Nadu," said the man whose Twitter hashtag NaMo has caught the fancy of the masses, "Cyclone Phailin hit the coast of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha last week. People were expecting a lot of destruction and ruin but that did not happen. Do you know why? It is because there is a wave of change rising from inside India that is bigger than any cyclone," he said.
Appreciating the state's BJP leaders for the massive response at his rally in Tiruchy last month, Modi observed that the support for the BJP in TN has grown immensely, "The mood of the workers is apparent. They know that a change is coming. I have been watching the people of Tamil Nadu and I know that they can make a change here that will be seen in Delhi. Their dreams and ours are the same - to see a Congress-less India," he said to rapturous cheers. He then urged people to vote the BJP into government in the 2014 polls and assured them that the "dreams of Tamil people" would be fulfilled.