J Jayalalithaa - A Mysuru girl, a Bengaluru student

BENGALURU: A 111-year-old photo studio on Church Street in Bengaluru bears an inadvertent connection with J Jayalalithaa.

EGK & Son, run by a family of former Cottonians, is in possession of a rare 1957 photograph. It shows a nine-year-old Jayalalithaa sitting cross-legged in the front row along with her classmates and teacher at the Bishop Cotton Girls' School on St Mark's Road in Bengaluru.

The photograph had landed at EGK about 15 years ago and the studio restored it digitally.


When Jayalalithaa first became chief minister of Tamil Nadu in 1991, Kannadigas felt a great sense of pride as one of them had made it to the top position, even if in a neighbouring state.

Born at Melukote in Mandya district, the reigning actor of yesteryears had spent her initial years in Mysuru before moving to Bengaluru, where she studied from nursery to grade four. Shoba Ellore, sister of EG Chandan, now the proprietor of the studio, had studied with Jayalalithaa. They were in the same class till Jayalalithaa moved to Tamil Nadu.

Ellore, now 70 and a citizen of the United States, recalls that Jayalalithaa had joined Bishop Cotton Girls' School after her mother Sandhya, who went to Tamil Nadu to work in the film industry , left her with a relative named KTG Iyengar.

“All of Iyengar's children were studying in Cottons, so Jayalalithaa also joined. From what I can remember, Jayalalithaa was very quiet and intelligent,“ said Ellore, who lived in Gandhinagar at the time. Ellore also said she is “intrigued“ by the fact that she was in the same class with someone who went on to become a huge public figure.

Beena Kumar, a 1984-batch Cottonian and treasurer of the Old Girls' Committee, added: “Jayalalithaa was (at Bishop Cotton Girls' School) for a short time and at a very young age. So few people remember her time here.What I have heard is that sweets and cake were distributed to the whole school on her birthday every year she was here.“
In Mysuru, Jayalalithaa had lived with her grandparents at Siddappa Square area near Mysore Palace. “I remember my grandmother telling us about Sandhya as a film actress,“ said a former neighbour of Jayalalithaa.

Jayalalaithaa's paternal grandfather, Narasimhan Rengachary , worked for the Mysuru royal family . Jayalalithaa lost her father Jayaram when she was about two years, which forced her mother Vedavalli to work briefly in Bengaluru. Vedavalli later moved to Chennai where she worked as an actor with Sandhya as her screen name.

When Jayalalithaa was convicted two years ago in a disproportionate assets case, she was lodged at Parappana Agrahara central prison on Bengaluru's outskirts. According to PN Jayasimha, who was DIG (prisons) at the time, said she asked jail officials to treat her like any other inmate. “She didn't want special treatment. She used to have two idlis in the morning and curd rice at night with milk and coffee in between,“ Jayasimha said.

Jayalalithaa's health was frail even then. “We were scared about her health condition,“ Jayasimha said.