Tharoor's love of life was full of vibrancy

At 5:39 am on Thursday morning, Sunanda Pushkar was awake and replied to a tweet, which would be her last, saying in jest that she and her husband Shashi Tharoor would never appear on a popular chat show hosted by Karan Johar.

Her reply “LOL that would Never happen” to a zestful tweet seeking to know whether she would appear along with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar did not betray any anguish. Sixteen hours later, she was found dead in a luxury hotel in Delhi.

Tweets seem to have had a big role in her life as she shot into limelight with a post from cricket administrator Lalit Modi raising questions about Tharoor’s female friend acquiring “sweat equity” in 2010 in Kochi IPL team for which Tharoor had intensely lobbied. Tharoor married her later but lost his ministership to the IPL fiasco.

In the midst of a battle of wits on Twitter with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar, whom she accused of stalking her husband, she is now found dead. Initial investigations suggest she committed suicide but there is no conclusive report as of now. Tarar tweeted, “What the hell. Sunanda. Oh my God...I just woke up and read this. I’m absolutely shocked. This is too awful for words. So tragic I don’t know what to say. Rest in peace, Sunanda.”

Only on Wednesday evening, she  jostled her way into limelight again by accessing her husband’s Twitter account and posted messages which she claimed Tarar had sent to Tharoor. 

The minister, who returned to the Union Council of Ministers after a gap following the IPL controversy, had said his account was hacked but Pushkar told media that nobody hacked the account and it was she who posted the messages.

She even said she was going to file for divorce on Wednesday evening but on Thursday the “happily married” couple issued a joint statement saying nothing was amiss in their relationship.

Of late, she was having medical complications and in one of the last tweets in the day around 8:01 pm, Tharoor said, “my wife’s illness means i need to be with her&will miss all 5 events of #JaipurLitFest 2014. Have promised to atone in 2015.”

Thirty minutes later after attending the day-long AICC session, when he landed up at the Hotel Leela, she did not respond to the knocking on the doors and later was found dead. They were staying in Hotel Leela since Thursday as renovation work was on at his official residence.

Tharoor had described Pushkar as the “love of my life and life of my love” in his latest book “Pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century”. The 52-year-old Pushkar, who hails from Sopore in Jammu Kashmir, rode into controversies with ease throughout her life and was not the one who would run away from adversities.

Known as a bold woman, Pushkar never hid her aggressive nature and even slapped a man at the Thiruvananthapuram airport when he misbehaved with her. Last Thursday in Dubai, she even had a verbal duel with a journalist for interviewing Tharoor during a private party.