Just a day ago, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said he was not the kind of leader who would lend his ears to eulogy.
But on Thursday, January 16, during the inaugural of the golden jubilee building of the Kerala Secretariat Employees Association (KSEA), the Chief Minister sat and listened to the last half of a 'Pinarayi anthem' that was sung by nearly 100 members of the KSEA.

After the news about the Pinarayi anthem threw up the question of political propriety, there was a move to perform the song before the CM arrived at the inaugural venue. However, the Chief Minister's Office had not asked the KSEA to either drop the song or reschedule its time. 

The attempt to shield the CM from further criticism was the KSEA's choice. Since the new building and the inaugural venue were some 200 metres apart, the KSEA wanted to time the song in such a way that the CM would be spared of any barbs but would still give his entry to the function a build-up befitting a superhero.  

The plan was to start the song when the CM cut the inaugural ribbon and end the song in just about the two minutes it would take for the CM's cavalcade to reach Central Stadium, the inaugural venue.

However, the CM reached the venue halfway into the song. The anthem, which began 'Chempadakku kaavalaal/chenkadal poloraal/chenkodi karathilenthi/keralathin kaavalaal' (the guardian of the red army, he's like an immense red ocean/the red flag in his arms, he stands guard over Kerala), is so full of celebratory terms that would have pleased ancient autocrats who thrived on sycophancy.

Malayala Manorama had reported on January 16 that more glowing adjectives were included at the last minute to convey Pinarayi's Emergency exploits.  

And during his nearly 45-minute speech, the Chief Minister made no reference to the song. The anthem was played once again, when the CM left the venue.

There was yet another point that Pinarayi made the other day on January 15. "No one can hope to gain anything by praising me," he had said. It has now been revealed that the lyricist of the Pinarayi anthem, Poovathur Chithrasenan, has been offered a post-retirement job in Secretariat. 

Chithrasenan retired as an office assistant in the General Administration Department in March 2023. The very next month he was appointed as 'messenger' in the Finance Department on daily wages. 

The job of the ''messenger' is to take files from one office to the other. A car has also been allotted to him. However, a source explained that this was no luxury as the office messenger's job requires constant movement from one place to another. "It's an old worn out Maruti Alto that he has been given," the source said.

The moot question is: Was Chithrasenan made to write the Pinarayi anthem as a kind of thanksgiving gesture? The lyricist told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram that he wrote the Pinarayi anthem at the bidding of the KSEA president, P Honey.