CHENNAI:The last journey of former President A P J Abdul Kalam in Rameswaram would well go down in the history of contemporary Tamil Nadu as the largest attended funeral outside Chennai. Perhaps it would also be recognised as the only spontaneous and orderly large-scale mourning observed by citizens transcending the barrwrs of political and communal affiliations sans the forced shutdown of normal life, flow of liquor or ‘suicides’ by those in grief.
While it would be early to put a final figure to the number of mourners from across destinations considering that people continued to pour in hours after Kalam was laid to rest, the number of farewell bidders would certainly be the highest for anyone who did not belong to the world of politics or glamour in Tamil Nadu. The turnout is noteworthy considering the fact that Kalam had demitted office as President eight years ago and did not hold any official position when he died except for being the unofficial brand ambassador of the youth and children. In the past, such large turnouts had been witnessed only for the funerals of former chief ministers K Kamaraj, C N Annadurai and M G Ramachandran, Dravidar Kazhagam founder Periyar E V Ramasamy and actor Sivaji Ganesan, all of which happened in Chennai.
Annadurai’s funeral procession had witnessed a record turnout of mourners with an estimated 15 million people attending it from all over the State in February 1969. At that time, 28 mourners who were travelling atop a train were crushed to death after the girders of the Kollidam (Coleroon) bridge sliced through them and six others were trampled to death en route the funeral procession. When MGR had died in December 1987, widespread arson and looting was witnessed in the streets of Chennai for three days. The last well-attended funeral recorded in Tamil Nadu was in July 2001 when legendary film actor Sivaji Ganesan passed away. Thousands of people had gathered outside his residence in T Nagar and en route to the Besant Nagar crematorium to mourn his death. While many of them were his fans, there were also numerous curious people who had assembled on either side of the funeral route to catch a glimpse of popular actors such as Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan who were atop the funeral carriage.
That element of glamour was missing in Kalam’s funeral with top film world personalities staying away for good. Yet people took the pains to travel to Rameswaram and patiently waited to pay tributes to him. The only other funeral outside Chennai that witnessed a significant turnout was that of U Muthuramalingam Thevar, a freedom fighter and leader of All India Forward Bloc, who died in October 1963. Incidentally, his resting place is also in Ramanathapuram district.