Mardi Gras in Madras

Fear, lies and skulduggery. Twists, turns and histrionics. THE WEEK brings you inside details of a high political drama that is still in search of a perfect denouement

- Lakshmi Subramanian

Eighty kilometres south of Chennai, along the scenic East Coast Road, lies Golden Bay, the city’s first luxury backwater resort. The drive to the place can be an enjoyable experience. Traffic is light, the shore is spread out before you, and dotting the road are coconut trees and palm groves. Roll down the windows, and the sea breeze would greet you.

The resort lies beyond the historic town of Mahabalipuram and the Kalpakkam nuclear power plant. Spread across five acres and surrounded by shallow backwaters on three sides, the resort and its serene environs are the last thing you would associate with the word turbulence. But turbulence, of the political kind, is what Golden Bay has come to symbolise in the past few days.

It all began on the afternoon of February 9, when the owner of the resort got a call from an AIADMK leader, who wanted to book rooms in bulk—that, too, immediately. The management, however, was hesitant, as some tourists had already made reservations. But since most of the rooms were unoccupied, they made arrangements to accommodate the leader’s request.

Sometime later, though, the staff at the resort were informed that the 100-odd legislators, for whom the rooms were booked, would be taken to Delhi and that the booking stood cancelled. Then, at 10.30pm, the rooms were rebooked. Around an hour later, a bus carrying around 100 men clad in white shirts and dhotis and a few women clad in saris arrived. By midnight, all rooms were occupied and the kitchen went into overdrive. Special non-vegetarian dishes were prepared for the guests.