Jayalalitha was born on 24 February 1948, at Melukote, in Pandavapura taluka, Mandya district, then in Mysore State (now Karnataka) to Jayaram and Vedavalli in a Tamil Iyengar Brahmin family. *Jayalalitha was given her grandmother's name Koamalavalli at the time of birth.* As per Brahmin custom, 2 names are given - one ancestral grandmother name and other being personal name. The personal name Jayalalitha was adopted at the age of 1 for the purpose of using the same in school and colleges. It was derived from the names of two houses where she resided in Mysore. One was "Jaya Vilas" and the other "Lalitha Vilas".
Her paternal grandfather, Narasimhan Rengachary, was in the service of the Mysore kingdom as a surgeon, and served as the court physician to Maharaja Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV of Mysore. Her maternal grandfather, Rangasamy Iyengar, moved to Mysore from Srirangam to work with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. He had one son and three daughters - Ambujavalli, Vedavalli and Padmavalli. Vedavalli was given in marriage to Narasimhan Rengachary's son, Jayaram. *The couple Jayaram-Vedvalli had two children: a son Jayakumar and a daughter, Jayalalitha.* Her mother, her relatives and later co-stars and friends referred her as Ammu. Jayalalitha's father, Jayaram, was a lawyer, but never worked and squandered most of the family money. He died when Jayalalitha was two years old.
The widowed Vedavalli returned to her father's home in Bangalore in 1950. Vedavalli learnt shorthand and typewriting to take up a clerical position to help support the family in 1950. Vedavalli's younger sister Ambujavalli had moved to Madras and was working as an air hostess since 1948 and was also acting in dramas and films using the screen name Vidyaavathy since 1951. After a while, on insistence of Ambujavalli, Jayalalithaa's mother Vedavalli also relocated to Madras and stayed with her sister since 1952. Vedavalli worked in a commercial firm in Madras and began dabbling in acting since 1953 under screen name Sandhya. Jayalalitha remained under care of her mother's sister Padmavalli and with maternal grandparents from 1950 to 1958 in Mysore. Vedavalli took on the name Sandhya and began to work as an actress, first in local drama companies and then in Tamil cinema. She took on the screen name of Sandhya. While still in Bangalore, Jayalalithaa attended Bishop Cotton Girls' School. In later interviews, Jayalalithaa spoke emotionally about how she missed her mother growing up in a different city, and she had the opportunity to visit her mother during summer vacations.
After her aunt Padmavalli's marriage in 1958, Jayalalitha moved to Chennai and began to live with her mother. She completed her childhood education at Sacred Heart Matriculation School (popularly known as Church Park Presentation Convent or Presentation Church Park Convent) in Chennai. She excelled at school and was offered a government scholarship to pursue further education. *She won Gold State Award for coming first in 10th standard in not just her school but also in Tamil Nadu.* She appears not to have accepted the admission offered to her at Stella Maris College, Chennai. She is fluent in several languages, including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, Malayalam and English. Her brother Jayakumar, his wife Vijayalakshmi and his daughter Deepa lived in T.Nagar Chennai. Her brother died in 1995 in an accident.
She was only 16 years old when she starred opposite M.G.R in Ayirathil Oruvan. The entire cast & crew would stand up every time the veteran actor walked in, but the Church Park educated, English speaking Jayalalitha sat there with her legs crossed, reading her book. It was this audacity that went on to define the rest of her political career. Obviously, she was a charming, multi-faceted actor who was trained in various dance forms. But not so obviously, she was well read and witty, she was intelligent and she knew it. It was not merely her affair with MGR that drew her to politics, it was her prolific ability to speak in English & Hindi with an intellect that could match an economist. When MGR died, she sat conspicuously at his head for an entire two days, relegating his wife Janaki to a sidelined spot. Janaki’s aids tried to push her away, in fact pinched her, stepped on her feet, but she refused to budge. When she got on to the carriage for the final procession, she was visibly pushed off it in front of all television cameras. This effrontery was what would help her survive all those years of politics that would follow. The entire party split into two after MGR’s death, but four years later united under her leadership to form one formidable opposition.
She won against all odds. She was a white skinned Brahmin in a party that thrived due to its Dravidian anti-class rhetoric. She was a glamorous actor who cannot, by definition, be taken seriously. Above all, she was a woman trying to ascend to power in 1980s in Tamilnadu. An unmarried, childless woman. To put it in context, she was not only walking a path of thorns, she did it in an oxygen less chamber while her arms and legs were tied. It’s a feat that she survived at all, not to mention that she actually thrived. In 1989, when she opposed Karunanidhi’s presentation of the budget, she was almost disrobed in the assembly. This was in addition to being the recipient of lewd comments and hair pulling. This is probably the highest documented insult that a woman has ever faced in a state Assembly. Yet she persisted. She came out of that incident more guarded than ever before. She wrapped herself in layers of clothing and stopped wearing any jewelry at all. She succeeded at ‘desexualizing’ herself and branded herself as ‘amma’ (mother), the only known way to gain respect in that highly testosterone filled environment.
Everyone knows her as the person who silences opposition and who creates sycophants who fall at her feet and worship her. This was the only possible way she could command, consolidate and hold on to the otherwise elusive power. If she was any more cordial than this, she might have as well been an airhostess.
She played popular politics. When the DMK promised laptops, she provided table fans, mixers and grinders instead all branded with her cherubic photograph on it. She accumulated disproportionate assets in 1996, and has faced her share of atonement. However, no one else, not even men, could have been a formidable opposition to the DMK that has systematized corruption and nepotism in ways that she couldn’t. Forget her followers who baselessly immolate themselves or cut off their fingers in a spree of blind devotion towards her. I have spoken to several civil servants of the state who claim they function with lesser interference under her leadership than under the other party.
And with four and a half years of her term left, there is no single leader that can fill her void. It will be several years, even decades, before another woman can even remotely achieve what she did in a state like Tamilnadu. Now her statues will come up all over the state, and for once I’m glad. In a few generations, all that will matter is that there is a woman’s statue as well, and that statue is not a mere kannagi who was venerated because she was a perfect wife, but of a woman who was a true and
powerful leader of her own merit and her own making.
