In the late 1990s, when south India was producing mainly potboilers and the Golden Era of parallel cinema was taking something of a break, a quiet masterpiece by Girish Kasaravalli won a National Award. The most incredible thing about Thaayi Saheba (1997) was perhaps that it relied in many ways on a glamorous actress hailed as the Dream Girl of Kannada cinema in the 1980s—Jayamala was both the producer and lead of the film, playing the titular character. Having debuted o