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Vivek Oberoi: Devinampattinam’s fallen star
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and Vivek Oberoi
are at loggerheads over tsunami relief in Devinampattinam
BY JACOB PAUL
 Devinampattinam is too obsolete a setting for a high profile tug-of-war in post tsunami Tamil Nadu, starring none other than Chief Minister J Jayalalitha and Bollywood superstar Vivek Oberoi. It would be a Herculean task to spot Devinampattinam in any map of Cuddallore, brought out before tsunami.
At first, it was fate, in the form of giant killer waves , which thrust the spotlight on Devinampattinam.
Four days later Devinampattinam had unusual visitors – Bollywood heartthrob Vivek
Oberoi and his spiritual mentor.
When Bollywood stars weren’t even ready to at least shed crocodile tears for the tsunami-hit people, Vivek Oberoi shunned his comforts to land at Devinampattinam, a remote fishing hamlet ravaged by the killer waves that claimed more than 8,000 lives in TN and displaced thousands more a day after Christmas.
Probably carried away by the depth of devastation as well as the uneasy glare of media in an occasion of grief, Vivek infused hope among the battered villagers. He announced a rehabilitation project costing Rs 10 crore.
But while putting up temporary shelters for them, he promised more than hope: permanent housing. He promised boats, nets, schools, play grounds and community centers. He gave them hope.
As Oberoi became an overnight cult in Devinampattinam, the dangers of unexpected stardom and the pitfalls attached to the promise he made also became deeper.
Devinampattinam slowly receded from the front-pages to backyards of newsrooms. Like the media hounds who descended there tracking the halo of Vivek Oberois celebrity status rather than the devastation caused by the killer waves and the work that needs to be done to bring back hope in people rendered homeless, deprived of their livelihood and struggling to gather pieces of life in makeshift tin shanties.
Vivek Oberoi on his part went back to Bollywood with the purported intention of collecting the raw material he needed most to usher in what he called Project Hope: Money.
But in the promises young Oberoi gave to the survivors and their kin was hidden the simmering seeds of discontent which was easy fodder for politics to mushroom. Especially in a state which goes to polls next year.
Oberoi’s intentions were overwhelmingly noble. But the path he chose to reach his hyped aim was arduous. It crisscrossed with a path which only political honchos like Jayalalitha would tread, en route to the political crowning glory of power: They call it Arisiyal in Tamil and politics in English. It takes something more than stardom to tread that path, as Jayalaitha would amply testify.
That was a colossal mistake, which a Bollywood hero from an apolitical background would obviously make. Oberoi did exactly that, without knowing what he was up to.
Three months and some star nights later, Oberoi found himself at the receiving end of the mud flung on him by the same villagers to whom he promised a decent living. Their discontent was palpable. They were still languishing in the make-shift tents which fate wanted them to be called home, sweet home.
In between what happened is shrouded in mystery, like the origin or trajectory of tsunami, which devastated Devinampattinam.
Oberoi says the Cuddallore district administration failed to provide him
the land needed for construction of permanent dwellings. The district administration says Oberoi just wanted some media space and that he did nothing more than make promises and tall claims. Jayalaithaa herself made this statement in the Assembly, while replying to a query, in a scathing indictment of Oberoi for trying to take credit for the work her government
did.
Days after tsunami, the Tamil Nadu Government, in a move to monitor and check the swarms of NGOs and other organisations who descend to the ravaged lands to provide relief and rehabilitation, brought out GO 25, which made it mandatory for all organizations to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the district administration, on the ways and means through which they proposed to do the work. They were also supposed to furnish the details about them. This, official sources say, was an irritant, which Oberoi didn’t like.
Oberoi has now shifted his project of hope to Pattinachery, the adjacent hamlet which falls under the jurisdiction of nearby Pondicherry a Union Territory ruled by Congress. The message: Social work is my birth right and I shall do it! A delighted Pondicherry government processed all paperwork of Oberoi’s project in 10 days. And Oberoi claims work has started in a 25-acre site. This distance between Devinampattinam and Pattinacherry is too less. But the rupee equivalent of the Oberois aborted project hope in Devinampattinam and proposed one in Pattinamcherry has a difference of a crore. That is too small a price to pay for the shattered dreams and mangled hopes of tsunami-hit, whether they are in Devinampatinam or Pattinchery.
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