Before falling in love with money, Kani loved books

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Now she will be back to doing what she used to like the most, reading and writing.

When Judge O.P. Saini rejected her bail petition and the police got ready to drive her to the Tihar jail, DMK Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi sought the court’s permission to take her spectacles, writing material and books.

If one goes by the CBI charge sheet, she had not used those things for long, being busy counting the bucks brought by collaborating with jailed DMK minister A. Raja on the spectrum allocation.

Actually, Kanimozhi was a very reluctant entrant to politics. She had fallen in love with a stranger in Singapore, brought close by mutual interest in Tamil literature and fine arts. And when she told parents Karunanidhi and Rajathi Ammal that she like to marry ‘commoner’ Aravindan just because they jelled on prose and poetry, there was understandable resistance.

Kani had her way and in a simple ceremony held in the porch of her house on Oliver Road, the CM gave his daughter away to the beaming bridegroom.

It was a paguththarivu marriage, which meant there were no purohits and no chanting of mantras—dad Karunanidhi claims he is an atheist—and it was then rumoured that Aravindan insisted that she come to his Singapore home with minimum baggage, and no expensive gifts from the parents.

Friends remember how during the earlier tenure of her father as chief minister, Kani would land up for a movie date in an autorickshaw and plead to be dropped back home.

She had fiercely defended her ‘freedom’ from the financial and political clout of her father and even took up a sub-editor job in a newspaper. And after marriage, she found a job in a Singapore newspaper, rushing to work after cooking the meal for Aravindan and his mom, and coming home dreaming of a family outing, and tired. For some reason, she returned to live with parents.

Aravindan would visit her and their son Aditya for about three months in the year, coinciding with the kid’s birthday and the Margazhi season of classical music in Chennai.

Things changed drastically for Kani and her little family when the DMK came to power in 2006 and Karunanidhi assumed office as chief minister for fifth term. Until then, Kani would insist she would have nothing to do with politics as there was nothing more precious than spending all her time with her son.

“Some of the members of his two families seemed to be in great hurry to make big money. Complaints kept popping up about close relatives controlling all kinds of businesses, including cinema and real estate. We have seen the manifestation of public revulsion in the rout in elections and now this spectrum arrest is the last nail in the coffin,” says a Left leader.

The opposition is understandably happy that the DMK is hit by one bolt after another. “People have given the right verdict against the corrupt in the recent elections and now we await the verdict from the judiciary in this 2-G case. The guilty will be punished, however mighty