At the time of her death, J Jayalalithaa was a formidable politician, with a reputation for not just holding her own, but also for giving back as good as she got.
She progressed from an actor who once wrote fairly candidly about her personal life in Tamil magazine Vikatan, to the politician who fiercely guarded her privacy.
Among the few interviews she gave in her long political career, is one to Prabhu Chawla. In that 2005 interview, during her second tenure as chief minister, and had to deal with a drought and an economic mess left behind by the DMK government.
“It was a sleight of hand by the DMK government. I had to take some stiff, tough economic measures. I went straight to the people and told them that in order to restore the state to fiscal health in the future, they had would have to take the bitter medicine for a while,” Jayalalithaa says.
But even then, she was quite ambitious, hinting at elected office beyond the state.
“I never thought I would become the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. I was handed that responsibility and I am doing my duty. I want to make Tamil Nadu the most prosperous state in the country and once I am have achieved that, if I am given more responsibility, I will take it,” she says candidly, while responding to a question on higher aspirations.
Watch the interview here: