Death does demolish differences. Rajinikanth and family were truly grieved at the passing of J. Jayalalithaa. But, as everybody recalls, there was a time when he had gone public against her politics. There was also the time when she as chief minister had converted her area, Poes Garden, into a fortress and he had remarked to me, "It's not Poes Garden anymore but Police Garden." He had reason to grumble since his address too has been Rajinikanth, Poes Garden, Chennai, for a very long time.

Expectedly, everybody seems to have a favourite Jayalalithaa moment to share today. I don't have one though I remember how my erstwhile Eve's Weekly and Star & Style office was in a tizzy when we received a legal notice from Jayalalithaa for an uncomplimentary personal item on her (written by another "unputdownable" woman called Devyani Chaubal, who was the queen of film journalism in the 70s and 80s). Jayalalithaa was, like our very own Raakhee, a feisty woman who promptly dashed off letters of protest or legal notices and wouldn't timidly accept anything that was written about her. After years of experience here, one knows that most celebrities brush off news stories as inconsequential and very few take open umbrage to gossip about them. Jayalalithaa fell into the "very few" category.

What I do have is a favourite moment with her mentor, MGR, which merits a repetition at this juncture. When the lift stopped at his floor at the Oberoi Hotel at Nariman Point, a sea of security people and supporters including the editor of a popular Tamil magazine, swarmed the corridor. People who hang around politicians are referred to as "supporters"; those who encircle film stars are "chamchas ". As actor-politician, MGR attracted both species. We were three or four chosen journalists who were escorted to his suite. But wait amma, please take off your shoes, I was told. It was like entering a temple as all of us stopped to remove footwear before going in for an audience with MGR.

Those were the inappropriate 70s when everybody smoked and nobody objected. So a journalist attempted to light a cigarette but it was quickly put off by an interceptor even before it reached his lips. One of MGR's loyalists hovering around, admonished the scribe with a stern, "You cannot smoke in front of Him."

MGR himself was like the benign celebrity who smiled a lot and answered all questions with easy grace. As the only female in the little group, I sat next to him with an interpreter on the other side. When I asked him a question about his trip to the US (he was in Mumbai en route to America) in Tamil, he was so pleased that he waved away the interpreter. And then, like a tabloid journalist, I asked him about how he in his 60s was still going around with co-stars in their 20s (a young thing was ensconced in the room next door). At this, the hangers-on jumped to attention and said, "You cannot ask such questions." But MGR was too seasoned for such crassness. "Let amma ask whatever she wants, it's all right," he said and turned to give me a politically correct answer.

Jayalalithaa imbibed much of her mentor's ways but went several steps further by turning imperious. They had a lot in common. Much like MGR's own ailments which were always shrouded in secrecy and Apollo doctors were rapped on the knuckles when news of his dialysis had leaked out in the 80s, Jayalalithaa's true medical condition was also a mystery till the end. It's a strange comment on fame and public acceptance that MGR's official wife Janaki, who lost out to Jayalalithaa politically, lost her place next to her husband even in death. Although Janaki Ramachandran gifted away most of her property to charitable and educational institutions and her house became the AIADMK headquarters, it's Jayalalithaa who lies buried next to MGR.

Death reminds me of the fake death in Sujoy Ghosh's disappointing Kahaani 2 . In my review of the film, I'd referred to a feeling of déjà vu over the climax scene. It took a couple of days to figure out that Sujoy had mixed scenes from two films. As recently as in the Irrfan Khan-starrer, Madaari (2016), the climax was in a shabby apartment where a kid is about to be blown up with gas cylinders around him. In Vidya Balan's own 2010 film Ishqiya , her husband staged his death by pretending to be a victim of a gas (cylinder) explosion in the house. How could Sujoy and Vidya be party to such a blatant repeat act and think nobody would notice it?

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author