 "Induvalu Suresh cut off his finger for Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi")
It's 10 in the morning as I wait for Induvalu Suresh to reach Bengaluru's main railway station. A resident of Ramanagara district in Karnataka, Suresh regularly flits between Mandya, Mysuru and Bengaluru on account of his granite business, but today he's a no show. A flurry of unanswered calls later, Suresh calls back. Please check WhatsApp, he says.
Suresh has been making waves after he claimed to have donated his left hand's little finger to the Tirupati shrine in Andhra Pradesh. Soon after the brief call, photographs of a little finger load on my phone, along with pictures of Suresh's bandaged hand. The finger is in a ziploc bag. Another set, clearly taken in a hotel room, shows a Rs 1,000 note over the finger. And then comes a picture of Suresh with Karnatak's housing minister, M H Ambareesh. Accompanying these is a shot of a handwritten note in Kannada which explaines that he had pledged to offer his finger if Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were let off in the ongoing National Herald case.
A father of two, a boy of five and a girl of eight, Suresh is no Congress worker, though he has supported the party since high school and displays a certain degree of sycophancy.
"When I reached Tirupati, Suresh had already cut and put the finger in a small pouch. He was bleeding and we immediately went to a hospital nearby. After that, we went to the temple and Suresh gave his offering," says Mahesh. This offering, besides Suresh's finger and Rs 1,000, included a letter that had his personal details and also mentioned the 'Gandhian cause' behind the act.
The incident has taken on a new shade of bizarre as Suresh's offering has reportedly gone missing. "Media reports of the cut finger being dropped in the sacred hundi of the over 2,000-year-old richest hill temple in the country are completely baseless," said Chinnamgari Ramana, the deputy executive officer of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD). "We haven't gone through all the CCTV footage yet, but we would have found the finger by now if it was there," clarified another TTD official.
"I don't understand why Tirupati authorities are claiming they didn't receive my offering," says Suresh. Accusations of being a fraud for personal or political gain don't really bother him though, primarily because the stunt got him invited to the housing minister's residence in Bengaluru. The minister also happens to be a Kannada film celebrity with over 200 films under his belt. And he's been Suresh's favourite ever since he was a young boy.
"My first priority is Ambareesh anna. Then the Gandhi family and then god," states Suresh, who was left charmed by the Gandhi scion after his visit to Mandya last October. Though the Congress brass in Delhi has maintained silence over the incident, meeting Ambareesh made Suresh a happy man. Ambareesh reportedly called Suresh "Kalyug's Ekalavya," referring to the archer in the Mahabharata who offered his thumb to guru Drona.
The dedication to the Gandhi family, explains Suresh, stems from his childhood. "I grew up seeing a portrait of Indira Gandhi that hangs in our house. Our house was built under her Garibi Hatao programme after all," shares Suresh, whose interests include Ambareesh's films and his own business.
"He always says that Lord Balaji will take care of everything, including this case. The children have been told that he got hurt; they've been following the news though," says Mahesh.
Has he really followed the case, we ask Suresh. "Let's not talk about that," says Suresh. He claims to have no political dreams "at present." While his bandages stay on for the time being, TTD authorities now have to deal with the case of a missing finger between tonnes of cash and gold that the temple receives.
Suresh has been making waves after he claimed to have donated his left hand's little finger to the Tirupati shrine in Andhra Pradesh. Soon after the brief call, photographs of a little finger load on my phone, along with pictures of Suresh's bandaged hand. The finger is in a ziploc bag. Another set, clearly taken in a hotel room, shows a Rs 1,000 note over the finger. And then comes a picture of Suresh with Karnatak's housing minister, M H Ambareesh. Accompanying these is a shot of a handwritten note in Kannada which explaines that he had pledged to offer his finger if Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were let off in the ongoing National Herald case.
A father of two, a boy of five and a girl of eight, Suresh is no Congress worker, though he has supported the party since high school and displays a certain degree of sycophancy.
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Suresh's gory offering was a well thought-out exercise, says his cousin, Mahesh N. "When we heard that Sonia and Rahul had got bail, Suresh told us he had vowed to give his finger as an act of gratitude," shares Bengaluru-based Mahesh. "No one took him seriously." On December 24, Suresh called his cousin from Tirupati and asked him to come to the temple immediately. "I left immediately. I was worried he may have done something," shares Mahesh who runs a catering business in the city.
"When I reached Tirupati, Suresh had already cut and put the finger in a small pouch. He was bleeding and we immediately went to a hospital nearby. After that, we went to the temple and Suresh gave his offering," says Mahesh. This offering, besides Suresh's finger and Rs 1,000, included a letter that had his personal details and also mentioned the 'Gandhian cause' behind the act.
The incident has taken on a new shade of bizarre as Suresh's offering has reportedly gone missing. "Media reports of the cut finger being dropped in the sacred hundi of the over 2,000-year-old richest hill temple in the country are completely baseless," said Chinnamgari Ramana, the deputy executive officer of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD). "We haven't gone through all the CCTV footage yet, but we would have found the finger by now if it was there," clarified another TTD official.
"I don't understand why Tirupati authorities are claiming they didn't receive my offering," says Suresh. Accusations of being a fraud for personal or political gain don't really bother him though, primarily because the stunt got him invited to the housing minister's residence in Bengaluru. The minister also happens to be a Kannada film celebrity with over 200 films under his belt. And he's been Suresh's favourite ever since he was a young boy.
"My first priority is Ambareesh anna. Then the Gandhi family and then god," states Suresh, who was left charmed by the Gandhi scion after his visit to Mandya last October. Though the Congress brass in Delhi has maintained silence over the incident, meeting Ambareesh made Suresh a happy man. Ambareesh reportedly called Suresh "Kalyug's Ekalavya," referring to the archer in the Mahabharata who offered his thumb to guru Drona.
The dedication to the Gandhi family, explains Suresh, stems from his childhood. "I grew up seeing a portrait of Indira Gandhi that hangs in our house. Our house was built under her Garibi Hatao programme after all," shares Suresh, whose interests include Ambareesh's films and his own business.
"He always says that Lord Balaji will take care of everything, including this case. The children have been told that he got hurt; they've been following the news though," says Mahesh.
Has he really followed the case, we ask Suresh. "Let's not talk about that," says Suresh. He claims to have no political dreams "at present." While his bandages stay on for the time being, TTD authorities now have to deal with the case of a missing finger between tonnes of cash and gold that the temple receives.