Tears for husband, not a drop for heist  

VIJAY DEO JHA

She often failed to bribe her emotions to stop tears wailing out even publicly. The lady herself accepted quite often that she is strong but her emotions sometimes cause embarrassment which she had rather not display, at least to the public eye.

But somehow, Geeta Koda, wife of jailed politician and former CM Madhu Koda, just can’t control lachrymal lapses. On Thursday, she wept around an hour before casting her vote during the Rajya Sabha election in favour of the Congress nominee Pradeep Kumar Balmuchu.

She was crucial for Congress’ electoral scheme and she turned-up quite late only after anxious poll managers of the Congress dispatched KN Tripathi to persuade and escort her for voting. She had unspent payloads of fury and complaints against the Congress, accumulated over the years, after her husband was arrested on November 30, 2009 against charges of looting state exchequer as Chief Minister.

She complained the Congress had secured her vote in 2010 Rajya Sabha election on the promise that the party will certainly do something to bailout him out of legal tangle within three to six months of time. “You did not so anything. Once your purposes are solved you forget promises,” she is learnt to have expressed her grudges before the Congress leaders in chocked voice. She was among the kingmakers on the day of RS election one that could doom or boom electoral prospect of the Congress. But her visages — swollen face and moisten eyes —belied countenance of kingmaker, rather wife of a disgraced king.

“Yes I am emotional. But tears in my eyes are because of toothache. I am not able to tolerate it,” she told half truth. Tripathi rather came with medical explanation of her grim face. “She has severe pain in kernel teeth. She drove here after consulting dentist who administered her injection to control pain.”

But it’s fair to say that her latest jerk of tear was least caused by toothache as another Congress MLA Sarfaraz Ahmed confirmed her emotional outburst before the Congress leaders. “She was weeping. She complained that the Congress did nothing for her jailed husband. It was tough to make her understand that personal issues can’t be mixed with political matter. Mr. Koda has been facing criminal cases not political, which is under investigation…and no political party or person can interfere in that. Law will take it own course,” he said. The Congress consoled her and secured her precious vote, though, she had no option but to vote for the Congress. The lady who had once announced to carry on the political legacy and legal battle of her husband is a serial crier too.

A brief history of lady Koda’s crying.

Fighting her first assembly election in the absence of her husband on December 2009 during campaign at Sarbil in Jagannathpur Geeta Koda made an emotive appeal and allowed tears to moisten her eyes. Tears paid her back, translated public emotions in vote. During brawl in Birsa Munda Jail where Madhu Koda suffered fracture on his elbow; she was furious and full of tears in demanding judicial probe of the case.

Psychologists would tell that women are more prone to jerking tears in a situation of uncontrolled flow when emotions bounds. Physiologists offer further explanation of tears: an overactive sympathetic nervous system cause outbursts of emotions under situation of stress or intense joy.

Noted eye specialist Bharti Kashyap classifies tears as followings — basal tears which lubricate the eye, reflex tears which is caused by irritant chemicals or pains in some parts of body and emotional tears. “I think she has the case of emotional tears which relieves one from the stress,” she said. In lady Koda case, many and more medical and psychological factors might have caused tears but nothing evidently qualify to stimulate her tear glands to shed a tear on the  massive loot by her husband and his Co.