Sasikala was a commercial video recorder for events before she met Jaya. The time when Sasikala was working on this job, video recording of events have been a novelty and has been a luxury. Even affluent families rarely used them at that time. But political parties in Tamil Nadu are one step above affluent families, that too a party like AIADMK was never short of funds. Jayalaitha was actively attending public events in the party at that time and she needed to secure herself a place in the party. She, unlike other men in the party, would interact with government officials with great zeal to get a grip on the government scheme she was supporting - MGR’s mid-day free meal scheme. As stated in other answers, Kuddalore (a district in Tamil Nadu) IAS officer Chandralekha was a close acquaintance for both Jaya and Sasi. Sasi in those days were way lower in the social strata while her husband Natarajan a very talented government Public Relations Officer who was out of work. Natarajan knows how politicas work, how the inside of governemnt works and how to create a favorable optics in the public. Sasi was introduced to Jaya by Chandralekha to record some of Jaya’s public events. So that they could be telecast in TV making Jaya a bit more popular than the other party cadres. This would boost Jaya one step ahead and that was the plan. It was all in a day’s hardwork, to get their master MGR’s attention and admiration. Too bad later Jaya took MGR’s role and Jaya’s old role was then taken by 1000s of sycophants in 1990s and later. But that’s a side story, I digress. When Sasi was doing this PR bit for Jaya, Sasi’s husband who knows every bit of politicking found a way to enter Jaya’s circle. He advised Jaya on how to manipulate MGR. Some of them include, 1. when MGR was bedridden in 1984 and the state elections were in the loom Natarajan was the one who advised Jaya on how to go to knook and corner of Tamil Nadu and campaign for MGR; 2. When MGR started to spiral down in his terminal illness, Natarajan manipulated Jaya to talk to the then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to ask MGR to retire from politics and appoint Jaya as his successor; 3. Natarajan also advised Jaya on how to get on to Rajiv Gandhi’s good side during this time.
So this is how Jaya and Sasi met. They became friends because of the events stated above where Natarajan played a prominent role.
Were Shasikala and Jayalalitha Lesbian?
When Jayalalitha had removed Sasikala from AIADMK and asked all of her family members to get out of her house at Poes Garden, majority of her die hard supporters were happy. Even people had lit fireworks in many places in Tamil Nadu to celebrate this step of Jayalalitha in 2011. However, few months later, Jayalalitha forgave Shasikala and she returned to the house with all of her family members.
And, people again started to blame that Jayalalitha couldn’t live without her sex partner Shasikala and hence this forgiveness was just an orchestrated drama.
The root of this allegation goes back in the late 1990s when a letter allegedly written by Jayalalitha to her personal physician came in the public forum. In this letter, Jayalalitha had disclosed about her sexual relationship with Shasikala. DMK linked people started to raise their voices based on this letter and asked for clarification from Jayalalitha.
That was a sort of heinous campaign meant to malign the character of a woman who was fighting all odds to shine in a predominantly patriarchal society.
On their parts, both Jayalalitha and her personal doctor had denied the existence of any such letter.
In a famous interview with Simi Grewal, Jayalalitha had said that she never thought any need to vociferously reply to these types of stupid and scandalous allegations.
It should also be noted that once Karunanidh had said that – A pious, Pure and chaste lady is talking about purity of Late Maran. Actually, few days back, Jayalalitha had said that Maran wasn’t as such a pious man that his statue can be erected in any corner of Tamil Nadu. Karunandhi had replied to this statement of Amma and clearly his sarcastic words like pious, pure and chaste were meant to malign the character of Jayalalitha.
In any case, there isn’t any proof in the public forum about the lesbian relationship between Jayalalitha and Shasikala.
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