The day after the announcement of the death of J Jayalalithaa, a journalist called and asked me if I was relieved by the news. “Surely you must be happy, because she made you suffer so much bringing a court injunction against the release of your book on her,” I was told. 

I was too embarrassed to answer. It seemed insensitive and crude. The journalist was testing my emotions. It was an attempt to provoke me at a time when a state of six crore people had lost a charismatic leader who was adored, revered, feared and despised in almost equal measure like no one else before her.