What accounts for this mystifying clout, this ability to throw her weight around and extract her pound of flesh? Eighteen MPs in an era of single-digit parliamentary majorities is an enticingly easy answer, but clearly not an entirely adequate one. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that she plays by her own rules and refuses to lose sight of her own importance. And so, on her last trip north of the Vindhyas, it was Sonia Gandhi who stepped down from her pedestal, changed her itinerary and trooped down to have tea with Jayalalitha. The interests of Tamil Nadu and the strategic imperative to testfire the Agni may dominate her missives to the Press, but as she zooms around in her custom-made Tata Sierra, with the strategically placed bulbs, it is a shadow wish list thatdominates negotiations. But since Jayalalitha so adroitly sets the agenda, all concerned have no option but to go along with her heartwrenching worries about the national interest.

However, the AIADMK leader's most effective weapon is the good old tantrum, which she has cultivated into a fine art by coupling it with an uncanny skill of casting herself as a victim. Are the stockmarket and the seminar circuit abuzz with worries about the economic and political turbulence she is unleashing on a weary nation? But then, she will beatifically tell you in a television interview, she never wanted to be where she is in the first place. A promising career in law cut short by dipping family fortunes, the steely lessons learnt in a dog-eat-dog world, the elusiveness of unconditional love... only the stonehearted will not be moved. As for coming days, the nation would clearly do well to brace itself for the unexpected, for a visibly more confident Jayalalitha, with 800 kg in excess baggage, intends to stick around inDelhi for a while. And seismologists better be on standby to measure the political earthquakes that are bound to shake the capital.