Imagine, when Irom Sharmila Chanu called off what is described as the world's longest fast of 16 years, she was booed by the locals. Leaving her hospital-prison this week, after a decade-and-half of solitary confinement for the crime of "attempted suicide", this woman of indomitable courage from Manipur, had nowhere to go. She was scorned by her followers because she had unilaterally declared that, disappointed by the result of her fast, she was calling it off, and would like to contest elections "to get our voices heard at the Centre," and to marry. Politics was a no-no, but the shaadi was the clanger.