A candid interview of JJ with Simi Grewal in 1999 is doing the rounds..Shows the real mettle of JJ
[h=1]I don’t think anyone has taken more criticism than I have: Jaya told Simi Garewal[/h] By Online Desk | Published: 06th December 2016 01:25 AM |
Last Updated: 06th December 2016 03:05 AM | A+A A- |
A file photo of TN Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa
Simi Garewal: Whether it’s a movie star or a politician, few can match the charisma of my guest tonight. Or for that matter few can match her political skills or her sheer courage. I’ve been watching her from a distance for many years, and I’ve heard her described as intimidating, highly complex, imperious. When I met her in Chennai I was struck by how incredibly forthright and gracious she was. And very human. Dr J Jayalalithaa. Jayaji, such a pleasure to finally meet and talk to you. Thank you giving me this opportunity.
Jayalalithaa: It’s my pleasure.
Simi: I have watched your political career over the years. It’s been a very brave journey, more than perhaps a film script, hasn’t it?
Jayalalithaa: It’s been a tempestuous life and career.
Simi: You’ve been through trials, triumphs, crises. How is it that you’ve never shown fear or anger or any other emotion? I know you must have them.
Jayalalithaa: Yes, of course, I’m human like everyone else. I do experience emotions and I wouldn’t be normal if I didn’t experience feelings of anger and other emotions but when you are a leader, you learn to control your emotions. You learn not to show them openly, you have to.
Simi: Is it necessary to appear to be tougher than one actually is to be accepted as a leader in this patriarchal world of politics?
Jayalalithaa: I’ve never consciously tried to appear tough. I suppose whatever I’ve done, my actions and reactions have made me appear tough. But I’ve never consciously attempted to appear tough.
Simi: You always have this serene, calm exterior. I want to know what lies behind it.
Jayalalithaa: I always keep my emotions to myself. They are not for public display. I have never lost my temper in public. I’ve never wept in public.
Simi: How did you manage to do that?
Jayalalithaa: I have a lot of will power, a lot of self-control.
Simi: But do you think politics has made you tougher?
Jayalalithaa: Of course, yes. I wasn’t like this at all. When I started out, I was very shy, terrified of meeting strangers. I’m a person who hates the limelight.
Simi: Isn’t that surprising?
Jayalalithaa: It’s very surprising. I’ve been propelled by fate into two very high-profile careers. But I’m really a behind-the-scenes person.
Simi: Do you think your childhood has a bearing on your present life and your present personality?
Jayalalithaa: None at all. I was brought up in a very traditional way by my grandparents. I was born into a Tamil Brahmin family, an Iyengar family. And I was brought up in a typical orthodox way.
Simi: Your father died when you were two.
Jayalalithaa: Yes. He was a gentleman of leisure. My paternal grandfather was a palace surgeon in the court of the Maharaja of Mysore. He had built up a great fortune but my father squandered away the family fortune.
Simi: So your mother was a widow at the age of twenty with two children and she was very beautiful.
Jayalalithaa: She was a very beautiful lady.
Simi: That’s a very difficult position for a woman to be in.
Jayalalithaa: Yes.
Watch Part 1 of the interview here:
Simi: How did you subsequently enter films?
Jayalalithaa: She was working in the secretariat in Bangalore. I had an aunt, my mother’s younger sister, who was a very bold and adventurous sort. She first became an air-hostess and that was considered very daring and adventurous in those days. After that she became an actress. Since my aunt was working in films, a number of producers and directors used to come home to see her. They happened to see my mother and they were struck by her looks. And Mother received a number of offers and that’s how she came to films.
Simi: When you were in Bangalore, your mother was in Madras and you were about four years old.
Jayalalithaa: When I was four years old, the family shifted to Madras and Mother became so busy with films that my brother and I were left entirely to the case of servants. So she thought this was not a healthy atmosphere to grow up in. So for four years, from six to ten, I was in Bangalore, living with my grandparents, separated from my mother.
Simi: Was the separation hard?
Jayalalithaa: I missed her terribly.
Simi: Did she visit you often?
Jayalalithaa: She visited me whenever she could, but that wasn’t very often. And I remember, when I was about five, and she had come to Bangalore to see us, I always used to cry whenever she left, so she used to put me to sleep and I always used to sleep clutching her sari pallu in my hands. I used to wind it tight around my hand. So my mother used to find it impossible to get up and leave. So leaving the edge of the sari in my hand, she used to gradually unwind the sari from herself, and she used to make my aunt drape the sari around herself and lie down beside me so that I wouldn’t notice her leaving. And then of course when I got up and found that Mother was gone, I would cry and cry and cry, I used to be inconsolable for about three days. But after that there was school and other things and I would get over it. But throughout those four years when I was in Bangalore, I was pining for my mother every minute, every second.
Simi: You may say that childhood doesn’t have a bearing on one’s life, psychologically, Jayaji, it does. It carries through in one’s life.
Jayalalithaa: Perhaps. When I look back in life, I seem to have spent so little time with my mother. I never really was satiated with the kind of love I expected and wanted and needed from my mother. Because there simply wasn’t enough time. I did come to Madras to live with her from the time I turned 10, from 10 to 16, but then Mother was so busy, she would leave in the morning, she would leave for work, before I woke up and most days she would come back home only after I had gone to sleep. I remember once I had won the first prize for an English essay I’d written at school and so I was so anxious to show this essay to her and show her the prize I’d won, I stayed up long part my usual bed time. It was I think midnight when Mother came back, and she found me sleeping on the sofa in the living room. And she asked me what I was doing there and why I wasn’t in my bedroom. I was holding the prize I’d won and my notebook with my essay in my hand, so I showed them to her. That is one of my treasured memories.
Simi: You were stuying in a convent, weren’t you?
Jayalalithaa: Yes. The days I spent at school were the happiest, most normal days of my life.
Simi: Did you have normal schoolgirl dreams and crushes and things like that?
Jayalalithaa: Yes, indeed. I remember having a great crush on Nari Contractor, the cricketer. I used to go to Test matches just to watch him. And I used to have another great crush on Shammi Kapoor,
Simi: He’ll be delighted. Did you ever get to meeting Shammi Kapoor?
Jayalalithaa: I don’t think I ever met him, no.
Simi: Sometimes it’s better to leave one’s fantasies as they are, don’t you agree?
Jayalalithaa: One of my favourite films even today is Junglee, the yahoo song.
Simi: What is your all-time favourite song?
Jayalalithaa: I can’t think of just one, there are so many.
Simi: Tell me some of them.
Jayalalithaa: There was a song in Do Ankhen Barah Haath, ‘Ae malik tere bande hum’. That’s one of my favourite song.
Simi: Can you sing it?
Jayalalithaa: Not now, I’m out of practice. Then there was ‘Aaja sanam madhur chandni mein hum,’ from Chori Chori.
Simi: Can you sing that?
Jayalalithaa: Not now, I’m out of practice.
Simi: Just one line?
Jayalalithaa: (
sings) I’m out of practice. Aaja sanam madhur chandni mein hum, tum mile to v
[FONT=Tahoma, serif]irane mein bhi aa jayegi bahaar..’[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, serif]Simi:[/FONT][FONT=Tahoma, serif] Tell me, is it true that some of your school friends used to mock you about your mother being an actress?[/FONT]
Jayalalithaa: Some of them, yes. Some of them used to do that.
Simi: You’ve said that it gave you a terribly inferiority complex.
Jayalalithaa: Yes, of course.
Simi: What did they say?
Jayalalithaa: You see these girls who came from the upper crust of society, born into wealthy families, and though I was born into a wealthy aristocratic family myself, those I was rather tongue-tied, if anyone insulted me or humiliated me, I didn’t know how to retort. I used to go home and cry. But today I’m very different. Today I give as good as I get or even more than I get (
laughs). But it’s true that some of my schoolmates used to mock at me because my mother was an actress, and I think they did that because she wasn’t a leading lady. If she had been a topmost star, one of the leading stars of her time day, I think they would have envied me but Mother was a character actress. She used to play mother’s roles, sister’s roles, so probably that was the reason why they probably looked down upon me.
Simi: Children can very cruel.
Jayalalithaa: They can be. They were. But probably subconsciously I’d make up for that by standing first in class, I was a brilliant student. I stood first in every subject constantly, and when I left school I won the award for the best outgoing student of the year. I was the unanimous choice of the headmistress and the teachers. And till today I consider that my proudest achievement.
Simi: At the age of 16, you were on the threshold of an academic career, you won a scholarship to join a college. That was when your mother pressurized into acting. Did you resist it?
Jayalalithaa: I tried. For three days, there was a battle royal at home. I wept, I raged, I argued. But what can one do when one is sixteen? I was just a child and I couldn’t run away from home. And then Mother explained the family circumstances to me. She told me that she was not getting too many film offers. My grandfather had retired. We had to support my grandparents, my aunt and her children, and my brother hadn’t completed his education. So my mother let me understand that there was no other way out really, that I had to earn and support the family. So when she explained the family circumstances to me, I was, to put it mildly, shocked. Because until then I had the impression that we were very wealthy. Mother had never allowed her worries to bother me or my brother. Right from the time we were born, we grew up thinking we were millionaire’s children. She gave us the best of everything. Anything we wanted was there the next day. So we never really knew or understood how much she had to struggle to give us this kind of an upbringing. So when I finally understood, my whole attitude changed. Then I felt a lot of sympathy for my mother. And I thought Mother had been through enough struggle and Mother had suffered so much in her life that I felt it wasn’t fair to expect her to keep on struggling and keep on suffering for our sakes. Then I thought it was my duty to provide relief to my mother, and take on the burden of supporting the family. So that is when I told Mother to return the scholarship, and accepted the film offers that had come our way. But everything was handed to me on a golden platter. Offers were pouring in by themselves. So she said make use of it, why not take it.
