Did Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai call Rekha 'Maa' at the Sansui Stardust awards or not is hot and trending on social media.

#Shocking, #Rekha and #Aishwarya are the top keywords doing the rounds after the awards function was telecast by Colors on 10 January.

Rekha presented Aishwarya Rai with the Power Packed Performer Award for her impressive comeback in Sanjay Gupta's Jazbaa.

Giving away the award, Rekha hugged Aishwarya and said ‘I hope I can give it to you for many more years,’ as the cameras zoomed in on Amitabh Bachchan's reaction. He sat in the audience, his face betraying no emotion except the ordinary.

In her acceptance speech, Aishwarya thanks a number of people and then looks at Rekha and says 'Thankyou, Maa' before continuing. At least, that's what is quite clear in the audio.

Aishwarya made her acting debut in 1997 with Mani Ratnam's Tamil film Iruvar, a semi-biographical political drama, featuring Mohanlal, Prakash Raj, Tabu and Revathi. Just as Jayalalithaa is called Amma and that shortens to Jaya-mma which makes her nobody's and everybody's mother figure, South Indians routinely use a person's name plus a 'ma' as generic suffix, Rekha-ma could well be 'maa-ch' ado about nothing, shall we say.