THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: 7.30 a.m. Tuesday. Exactly 12 hours after his resignation, we were at Thycaud House. The official residence of former minister Mathew T. Thomas.
We proved him wrong! He had said on Monday that a former minister and yesterday’s newspaper were the same.
“Nobody will touch either,” he had said. When we said we had come to prove that Mathew T. Thomas still mattered, he was quick to react.
“I will be in the media only for one or two days. After that you all will forget me,” he said.
He was cool like the day before.
But much more relaxed. Before him were lying a heap of newspapers, all carrying the headlines of his resignation.
But he couldn’t even glance at them as his mobile phone had not given him rest since Monday evening.
“I went to bed at 1.30 a.m. after attending all the calls. In fact, a phone call woke me up in the morning,” the former minister said. He showed no hesitancy in taking the calls. He was receiving calls from New York, the Gulf, Tiruvalla and from the employees of KSRTC.
In between, came the call from Finance Minister Thomas Isaac, who was desperate to meet Mathew T. Thomas. “We will meet today itself,” he assured Isaac.
“I will have to meet all my cabinet colleagues before I leave for home town,” he said.
What was the reaction of his ministerial colleagues? “All are depressed, but the CM was the most,” he said.
Soon came a call from his neighbour in Tiruvalla, Joy Uncle, who was virtually weeping over the resignation of Mathew T. Thomas.
“Why are you upset Joy Uncle? It happens in politics. Take it in the right spirit,” the former minister consoled him.
Mathew T. Thomas’ elder daughter Achu, a literature student, served us hot tea. Ammu, her younger sibling, was more ecstatic over her “appa’s” resignation. “Didn’t you see his 250-watt smile while coming back after resigning,” Ammu asked us.
Ammu was the first to receive her father yesterday when Mathew T. Thomas reached home after tendering his resignation. “She is more jubilant,” said the proud father.
But her favourite minister is M.A. Baby. Ask her why. “Education is our department. Who wants Transport?,” Ammu quipped.
“We have decided to stay in the official residence for 15 more days, as Ammu’s examinations are not over yet. She is studying in Class VI at Cotton Hill School. After the exams, the entire family will be shifting to Tiruvalla and Ammu will join some government school there,” Mathew T. Thomas said, adding, “I need only one room to stay; that I will get in the MLA Hostel.” M.A. Baby had invited the former minister’s family for breakfast and his wife Sudha, Achu and Ammu were getting ready. It was half-past eight and Mathew T. Thomas was still speaking to us, sitting relaxed.
Before posing for a family photo, we asked, “Who is the most happiest on his resignation, his wife or children?”.
“No doubt we are the happiest,” screamed Achu and Ammu.
But his wife became serious. “His parents are too old and no one is there to take care of them. Now we all will be with them,” said Sudha.
The former minister was full of praise for the media support he got right from his inception as minister.
“But I had some more plans which I couldn’t fulfil. I am more worried over what I couldn’t do than thinking of what I did,” we could read the dejection in his voice.
“The employees of KSRTC were my strength. They stood by me, though several others would have prayed for my removal,” Mathew T. Thomas signed off.