Watch: Jayalalithaa sings and talks about love in classic episode of Rendezvous with Simi Garewal

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa passed away on Monday, 5 December 2016, breathing her last at 11.30 pm. The enigmatic leader had been undergoing treatment since late September and passed away from a cardiac arrest. Jayalalithaa forayed into politics in 1982 by joining the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam(AIADMK), which was founded by MG Ramachandran; before this, she was one of the most iconic and well-remembered actresses of her time. [caption id=“attachment_3142038” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Simi Garewal with Jayalalithaa during the interview. Image courtesy: Twitter/Simi Garewal[/caption] Here’s a rare 19-year old interview with Simi Garewal in which the late leader talks about how she came to join politics; among other things. The 1999 interview manages to show the emotions behind Amma’s otherwise stoic facade. What’s behind that unreadable facade that AIADMK leader shows to the world asks the host? “When you are a leader you learn to control your emotions, you learn to keep them in control. I keep my emotions to myself. I have never lost my temper in public, I have never wept in public,” says Jayalalithaa. How does she manage that? “I have a lot of will power, self control” says the actress turned politician. Looking at her life story that Simi Garewal manages to uncover, you can be sure of one thing; Jayalalithaa’s achievements are not a mere stroke of luck, there was an immense amount of hard work and will power involved. “I learnt everything the hard way,” she recalls. Simi coaxes her to talk about her childhood. Jaya’s father who passed away when she was two, had a deep impact on her early years; and her mother’s work schedule; which didn’t allow her to spend alot of time with her daughter. But she also says that her school days were the ‘happiest, most normal days’ of her life. One of the most heart wrenching moments of the interview is when she recalls how she had to be separated from her mother till the time she was 10. Jaya elaborates on an incident, “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 Garewal even got the politician to talk about her crushes: She recalls having a crush on cricketer Nari Contractor and Shammi Kapoor, whom she never met. The host also manages to, make her sing lines from her favourite song, ‘Aaja Sanam Madhur Chandni’ from Mein Hum with her. Watch Jayalalithaa sing with Garewal 9:55 minutes into the video:

Then she goes on to elaborate on her views on love. She says about MGR whom she did 28 films with, “He was a very warm and caring kind of a person. And after Mother died, he replaced her in my life.” Simi Garewal also went to ask her about if she ever found unconditional love. “No. I don’t think there is anything such as unconditional love. I think it exists in books, in novels, in poems, in films. Not in real life. In any case, I have never come across anything like that.” says the leader without any expression on her face. She also talks about male chauvinism in politics and how hard it was for her to consolidate her position in the AIADMK party. She smugly tells Garewal that she does think men are intimidated by her. “Nowadays most men I meet are terrified of me,” she said and smiled. She also added: “Politics can do without women. And they tried really hard to make it happen without women.” Watch her talk about her political career here: