It ain't over till the fat lady sings!

If you are into ‘Siddhuisms’ (The many incomprehensible sayings of former cricketer and Member of Parliament Navjot Singh Siddhu ) you would have heard this one:

It ain’t over till the fat lady sings!

What does it really mean?

The phrase is generally understood to be a reference to Richard Wagner and his Grand Opera. In one of his opera’s a buxom 

(Playing Brunhilde in Die Walküre: A mighty female warrior, one of the Valkyries, and a 

heroine from the German epics, especially in the Nibelungen saga, in which 

she is a Icelandic princess)

soprano concludes the opera. Her aria lasts almost twenty minutes and leads directly to the end of the opera, after which the audience leave.

Another story is that the dreaded Chicago gangster Al Capone became much enamored of opera because he thought it made him look civilized in a mean Chicago. Thorough man that he was, Capone took great pains to learn the stuff before he decided to trundle down to view one. Accompanied by two tough bodyguards, he took his seat at the opera house. After the first aria, the goons rose to leave, whereupon Al grabbed them by their coattails: "Sit-down," he growled, "it ain't over till the fat lady sings". Al got that one right, though he could not dodge Income Tax sleuths later on.

The phrase has gained enormous popularity among commentators of all kinds across the world to mean that it’s not completed till it really ends! In India till a week ago as we sat with bated breath for the election results to be announced a thought that exercised most people’s minds was if a government at the center would include in any which way two of our most heard politicians – Miss Jayalalitha Jayaram ( JJ ) and Miss Mamata Bannerjee ( Didi ). 

Most fear the two ladies, simply because they sing to their own tune and I suspect on occasion forget that they are a small part of a larger federation of states called India, governed by a constitution. When asked about post poll alliances both had their points of view and one even aspired to lead a third- front ( As apart from the NDA & UPS ) in Delhi as Prime Minister.

While most thought this not possible, some would say ‘It ain’t over till the fat lady sings’. Well the fat lady has sung and we are going to have a new Prime Minister leading a stable government at Delhi.

As for JJ & Didi they are back to their verbal volleying after a hiatus of sorts – There are newspaper reports that Didi will not attend the swearing in of the new PM and the other is protesting an invitation to the Sri Lankan President to attend his swearing in by Narendra Modi and may well adopt a similar churlish stance.

I'm glad that India is attempting to mend its strained relationship with Sri Lanka, fueled in many ways by parochial politics from Tamil Nadu. The same goes for Bangladesh and the incumbent government in Bengal.

Well the fact is that the elections are done and dusted and the fat lady has had her say!