A teacher is grilling a student who has returned to school after a longish absence. The truth is sad, but simple. The child's mother died. But the child is tongue-tied. Why? Because she knows she will be thrown into prison if she tells the teacher, "Amma died."

It might be in poor taste, but this what-you-may-call-it, among many others, is doing the rounds since Tamil Nadu CM J. Jayalalithaa's hospitalisation more than a month ago. And if you look through the black humour, you will pick up on the suppressed fear in the state today.

And why not? After all, Tamil Nadu is Amma and Amma is Tamil Nadu.

In 1982, when Jayalalithaa turned politician, the erstwhile popular southern movie star reinvented herself in more ways than one. The most obvious, perhaps, was the sobriquet change. From anni or brother's wife (a reference to her relationship with MGR) to puraichi thailavi or revolutionary leader, Jayalalithaa became Amma with a capital A.

Political analysts say it was a deliberate and clever attempt to shed all "degrading and negative connotations" of the past.

"It helped to keep men at a distance. And she evolved into this benevolent, generous mother-like figure," says Vaasanthi, her biographer.

Today, Amma is a phenomenon that has outstripped the 68-year-old woman lying in Chennai's Apollo hospital.

There are Amma Unavagams or Amma canteens. There are Amma mineral water bottles selling at Rs 10 a litre at bus stops, subsidised Amma Salt and Amma Cement. There are Amma Pharmacies where medicines are sold at prices 15 per cent lower than the MRP.

T.K.S. Elangovan is disapproving. Says the senior DMK spokesperson and former MP, "Illustrious leaders like Annadurai or even MGR refrained from naming schemes after themselves." But he concedes that even if the DMK comes to power, populist initiatives such as the Amma Unavagams will continue uninterrupted. Albeit, with a name tweak.

Then there is the Amma Baby Care kit. Every woman, who chooses a government hospital to have her baby in, gets Rs 12,000 in her bank account and a kit full of soaps and lotions and diapers. In Chennai, between the two government maternity hospitals, there are 1,100 babies born every month.

After she came to power this year, Jayalalithaa promised many more schemes. So in Amma Land, young people clutching subsidised Amma Mobiles can access Amma Wi-Fi zones, free of cost, exercise in the 500 affordable Amma Gyms or jog in Amma Parks or catch a movie at an Amma Theatre for just Rs 25 a ticket. One can get married in an Amma Marriage Hall. And, buy inexpensive vegetables from the Amma Vegetable Market.

One of the most recent Amma schemes is the Amma Master Health Check-up. The unique thing about this eight-month-old facility (available in two government hospitals) is that you can get a Dexa scan (Rs 2,500 elsewhere) and a bone profile test (Rs 1,750 elsewhere) along with a bunch of blood tests, X-rays and a mammogram - all for Rs 3,000. It is no wonder then that IAS officers, professionals and housewives from neighbouring towns and cities are beating a path to this facility.

Nearly 9,000 people have used Amma MHC so far and the scheme has generated Rs 2 crore revenue. Amma canteens, however, have had the maximum impact. Begun in 2013 with 200 outlets offering heavily subsidised food, there are 407 of them today in Chennai alone.

The scale of the operation is huge. Approximately 1,58,000 idlis at Rs 1 each and 91,494 chappatis at Rs 3, and 11,322 plates of lemon rice at Rs 5 are sold in a single day in Chennai. The canteens also serve curd rice, pongal and sambar. At the new Amma canteen opened next to Apollo Hospital, 1,000 customers eat every day.

Each canteen is run by 12 women, all drawn from women's self-help groups in the area. Nirmala Murthy, a 53-year-old woman abandoned by her husband and son, works here as a cook and helper for a monthly salary of Rs 9,000. "This helps me live a dignified life. It is all thanks to Amma," she says looking heavenward.

Blessings flow from those who eat at these canteens too. Vijay Kumar is an electrician from Odisha. "The food is tasty. I pay Rs 5 for breakfast, instead of the standard 40-rupee-meals elsewhere," he says. It seems similar canteens have opened up in his hometown in Odisha.

Economists, of course, question the feasibility of such schemes. "We also need to ask whether food inspections are conducted and hygiene is maintained," says R. Srinivasan, associate professor, department of econometrics, University of Madras. Quoting from last year's CAG report, he says, "The expenditure on Amma canteens crossed Rs 100 crores and there is no provision for it in the municipal corporation budget."

When asked about the losses incurred by the subsidised canteens, a senior municipal corporation official assumed the maun vrat.

AIADMK spokesperson C.R. Saraswathi - at a vigil outside the hospital along with a group of party workers wearing bulbous Amma rings and gold chains and bulky Amma pendants - has a ready answer: "Amma will take care, she knows how to manage these things."

But for that Amma must first emerge from the illness that it has become almost a crime to speculate on. That's the other Amma enterprise unfolding across Tamil Nadu: Amma Scare.