After marriage, I turned into an adult in the eyes of my parents almost overnight. Call it the Indian mentality, or call it the realization by your parents that you are capable of running a household. I did spend most of the early days calling my mother for advice on running a house, taking care of kids or even dealing with the help. Arguments would turn into reminiscences and I finally understood the effort my parents had put into making our lives normal. Since then, my love for them has grown from the blind adoration of a child to a more mature respect for what their lives were like and how they had brought us up irrespective of the pressures. Marrying an actor has given me even more insight into their situation. My husband’s companionship has also made me more confident and, of course, he has given me the greatest gift of all—a family of my own. I hope these changes in me have made both Appa and Dhanush proud, not that I would want them to ever discuss it. I shudder to imagine those two perfectionists taking apart my happy-go-lucky attitude to life!
Honeymoon Horrors
Our honeymoon planning established the fact that opposites attract. My idea of a perfect holiday destination is a misty, cool hill station with mountains and forests. Dhanush is a beach person. We were in the process of deciding on a destination when someone mentioned Maldives. A swanky resort had just opened there that everyone was raving about. It was supposedly exotic, luxurious, and the perfect place for newly-weds.
I thought I got quite enough of the sun in Chennai. Moreover, I hate beaches and was not very enthusiastic about lathering myself with greasy layers of sunblock and stocking up on large brimmed hats and umbrellas—and still get fried in the sun. I tan in a second. I have no issues with the colour; I love the beach look, when people come back from their time in the sun looking flushed, happy and healthy. What stops me is my extremely photosensitive skin. Even a little time in the sun has me breaking out in blotchy patches and an outbreak of rashes on every inch touched by the sun. I suffered until I was diagnosed in my teens and from then on I have avoided direct sunlight. This has also caused its share of emotional problems. I used to go out with an umbrella and people thought I was overly concerned about the colour of my skin or that I was a snob, using the umbrella as a shield. I got to hear more than a few snarky comments.
The beach was not my favourite destination for another reason too. The salt water and sand in every crevice, the waves that literally take the ground from under you, it was all a little too much for me. Certainly nothing like those glossy images of beach resorts and models lounging on the sand make it out to be. So I wasn’t very happy about a beach destination, but since I was starting a new life and wanted to try new things, I agreed. Also, Dhanush seemed to hate the cold even more than I hated the sun. The glowing recommendations for the resort also helped.
So here we were, on the brink of an exciting new life together and looking forward to a much needed holiday, although I was still a little apprehensive about the beach. Little did I know that fate had something much worse in store for me and the beach by itself would have been paradise.
Appa was very amused when he heard of our honeymoon destination. He knew my aversion to the sun and the sand and teased me about how marriage could cause such an about-turn in tastes.
As it happened, I fell sick right after the main function. I was advised not to travel and so the Maldives trip was postponed. I had mixed feelings about this, but expected to leave as soon as I had recovered. Meanwhile, a friend of ours from the US flew down to Maldives, expecting us to be there and finding us missing, commandeered our honeymoon suite before we got around to cancelling it. This enterprising friend had an amazing holiday all by himself since his wife and child had headed straight home after the wedding. I was aghast at first but soon saw the funny side of it. And at least the booking didn’t go to waste.
By the time I recovered, it was time for Dhanush to start work on an exciting new movie, Adhu Oru Kana Kaalam, directed by the legendary Balu Mahendra. Naturally our honeymoon took a back seat. It was a great role for Dhanush and he didn’t want to miss out on an opportunity to work with such a stalwart. He is extremely professional and work comes before anything else. And that’s just one of the many qualities that I love about my husband, so I wasn’t disappointed at all. In fact, I decided to accompany him for the shoot. Unlike many location shoots of the time, though, this wasn’t Switzerland or any naturally beautiful location abroad. It was in Rajahmundry and Dhanush was worried about the amenities at the location. I was still in my post-wedding glow of happiness and too much in love to let him go by himself. Also, I enjoy shoots immensely. Most people are put off by the experience, but I’ve always found it fascinating, the confusion and scattering of ideas that slowly turn into magic on screen. The thrill of watching a master director at work was the cherry on the cake.
The location in Rajahmundry turned out to be a prison. I am being literal here. It was a real jail! Balu Mahendra wanted authenticity, so the shoot was taking place at a jail with real prisoners lurking in the background. The place we were staying in was the only hotel nearby and was one of the seediest places I have ever been to. I did not want to stay there while Dhanush was away shooting, so decided to accompany him to the location. He told me to stay in the vanity van, but my curiosity got to me and I had to step out. The jail was an experience like no other. I realized that no manufactured set could replicate the atmosphere of that place. I also realized why Balu Mahendra movies are a world apart. A cold shiver passed through me as I entered. Even in broad daylight, it looked eerie. The cast was walking past me in jail uniform and smiled at me as I passed. I smiled back and nodded my head at a few. My husband’s makeup man was a few paces behind me; he came running and whispered in my ear. ‘Those are not extras dressed as prisoners, they are actual prisoners. Madam, please keep your distance.’
I almost jumped out of my skin in fright.
I had to spend the rest of the shoot waiting at the dingy hotel. I am sure it was quite a difficult time for my new husband. He is one of those actors who gets into the skin of their characters. Not exactly method acting, but he does develop an intense empathy for the role and that is what translates into the intensity that appears on screen. Imagine an actor like that shooting in a jail for scenes that are not exactly stress free, with a celebrated director, and then coming back to a sad, sad hotel room with a bored new wife waiting for him. I was so jobless through the day, I couldn’t wait for him to come back and entertain me.
To his credit, he didn’t show any irritation. He tried his best to make me comfortable. From replacing all the bedspreads in the room with new ones to getting the entire Friends series boxed set for me. The bathroom was the scariest; it almost made me want to run back to the jail. The water heater was an ancient behemoth, right on top of the showerhead. Rust spots covered it and whenever I switched it on, a strange ticking would start. I was pretty sure it was going to explode over my head, right when I was showering. Thankfully the experience didn’t last for too long. The shoot was meant to be for two weeks, but the director felt so sorry for us newly-weds that he finished it in a week!
For a little while, I wanted to prove that I could accompany my husband not just to the shopping spots and tourist destinations of the world when it came to shoots, but also to hard-to-live-in places. I got over this notion pretty soon. He stopped asking me to accompany him on shoots away from the city out of sheer dread. Scared of the cribbing he would have to endure if the facilities were bad.
Biography of a Mother
A few kilometres from Theni in southern Tamil Nadu, there is a village called Shankarapuram. A few decades ago a sixteen-year-old girl from the village got married to a twenty-year-old man from another village, five kilometres away. The wedding took place at the Murugan temple in a town called Bodinayakanoor with around hundred people in attendance. It did not exactly start well and maybe that was a portent of the hardships to come. A cousin claimed to be in love with the bride and created a ruckus. He was sent away, after which the weddi
ng proceeded beautifully and perhaps this could be taken as another kind of indication of their future.
She was the fairest in the village and her new husband was a dark, quiet man. They came to the girl’s village after the wedding and left the next day for Madurai. She lived in Madurai for two years with her husband and mother-in-law. They were not very well off. Her husband found work in a mill. They had their first child—a son. The delivery was at home, with her husband by her side. She fell ill soon afterwards and he had to quit his job to take care of her and their one-year-old child. Money soon ran out and he had to leave her back in Shankarapuram, while he looked for work. It was not a good time for the young woman, but it was nothing compared to the travails she would have to face in the future. Once married, women were not supposed to go back to their father’s home, no matter what the problem, and so she felt unwelcome in her own house.
The husband, meanwhile, took on any work he could find in Madurai. No job was too menial—he had to bring his wife and son back. But two years passed before he could do so. Even then, they weren’t together for long. An uncle came to visit and seeing their plight, advised him to look for a job in Madras. He left his wife and son with her parents again and came to the city.
Madras had a vibrant horse-racing tradition and gambling was legal at that point. His uncle got him a job in one of the betting offices that had mushroomed around the city. He took bets and kept the accounts. He wasn’t earning enough to bring his wife and child to Madras but he could visit them once in a while and he could send money for their basic expenses. When she became pregnant a year later, he decided to bring her to the city. The village doctor assured them that it was safe for her to travel. They took a train to Madras but on the way she went into labour. Just before they reached Madras, her water broke. The train had to be stopped and they hurried to the nearest hospital, but the baby was born just before they reached. It was a girl. When they finally set foot in the city, they were a family of four, with a baby daughter and a three-year-old son.
That is how my mother-in-law arrived in Madras. It was her first time in any city and there she was, with a newborn and a toddler. It must have been overwhelming. My father-in-law had rented a small place and continued working in the betting shop. She tended to the children and a tiny home on their meagre income.
There is one incident she narrated which made me understand the true nature of her struggles. When her first son was four years old, they had to travel to Madurai from her village. Someone had promised my father-in-law a job in Madurai, if he could reach within a certain time. The distance between the two places is close to a hundred kilometres. There was no money to travel even by bus. They had to walk and hitchhike, hoping some good samaritan would offer them a ride, but nobody stopped for them.
After half an hour of walking, the young boy told his mother that he was hungry. She did not know what to do. They had to reach Madurai before they could eat, her child was hungry, and she could do nothing about it. Call it ingenuity, call it the struggle for basic survival, but she calmed him down with a trick. There was a milestone that said ninety kilometres to Madurai. She told him that when they reached a milestone that read eighty kilometres, there would be a shop that sold food and they could eat. When the eighty-kilometre milestone appeared, he asked for food again. She told him the shop seemed to have shifted to the seventy-kilometre milestone. He cried for a bit and then slept on his father’s shoulder, too tired to even complain about his hunger. They managed to reach Madurai, walking all the way, taking turns to carry the young child. It is a story that makes me shudder even now. I cannot imagine having to see my child hungry and tired and not be able to do anything about it. It must have been heartbreaking for her.
The family’s association with the movies happened by chance. A few movie directors of the time used to visit the place where my father-in-law worked and they suggested he work for them. He quit his job at the betting shop and joined the film industry as an assistant director. Though he worked under the best directors for a few years, his financial situation remained bleak. My mother-in-law had to make ends meet with a paltry three hundred rupees, month after month. Going hungry herself to feed the kids was a common occurrence. Running the household on a shoestring budget, learning to navigate the city and taking care of the kids must have been quite a task, but she was a fighter. Naïve, yet stubborn enough to survive and do much more than that for her children. A couple of years later, they were blessed with another daughter. My father-in-law climbed a few rungs at work and things started to look a little better, but not much. He still hadn’t got an opportunity to direct a movie. The method of payment had also changed. An assistant director was paid Rs 2000 for a full movie. Shoots sometimes went on for six months. My mother-in-law started eating only once a day so that her children could have a full meal at night before they slept. He supplemented his income by transcribing scripts for other directors after work hours. He was paid Rs 300 for each script. Two years later their fourth child was born—a son. The first child that she had in a hospital.
My mother-in-law always did what she thought was best for her children and her kids were at the forefront of every decision she made. Following her instincts, with faith in god and trust in her husband, she fought for survival without succumbing to their abject poverty. And the results were spectacular. She brought up four strong, creative and brilliant individuals who excelled in anything and everything they chose to do. Thankfully things soon started looking up and my father-in-law got a chance to direct a movie.
Even in the midst of all the hardship, my mother-in-law would save a coin here and there for her children’s education and for her daughters’ marriage. She knew that the girls had to be married someday and they would need jewellery. So every penny was saved and there was no eating out or going to movies. There were much more important uses for the money—for her children’s future. Her own wishes came last. I admire my mother-in-law immensely and am fascinated by these twin, seemingly opposing traits in her, of strength and sensitivity. If not for her, my husband wouldn’t be who he is. And irrespective of her humble background and bitter struggle to survive, she has brought up independent, positive and confident human beings who have made their mark in the world.
My mother-in-law dreamed of her children succeeding academically. She loves her saris and jewellery, but when her first-born joined an engineering college, she sold the jewellery to pay the fees. She had to do the same thing for her second child, who went on to become a doctor. I remember her telling me, it only hurts the first time, when you do it again and again, it doesn’t hurt because it is for your children. She wanted her daughters to become doctors and she saw that dream come true. They were told to study well and make it big in life. My sisters-in-law have told me how they never entered the kitchen or learned to cook, as was expected of most girls around them. Their mother told them there would always be time for that later in life.
By the time her second daughter was studying for her post-graduation, her youngest son had started earning some money. He made them proud by paying for her education, even though he had to cut his own short, which is probably her only regret. Dhanush had to join films because no one else was willing to give them dates for a movie. It happened during the last term of his eleventh standard. From what he has told me, Dhanush was a happy-go-lucky boy who wanted to become a chef and travel the world on a luxury cruise liner. He loved movies, but a career in films was not on his radar. Meanwhile, things were not going smoothly at home. Financial pressures had mounted and as a final effort, my father-in-law decided to put their money into a single project, hoping it would do well.
Selva, Dhanush’s older brother, had written his first script and wanted to direct the movie. It was a coming-of-age story, very different from the usual romances, and they were confident it would do well. The script and the director were ready but no young actor of the time was willing to give them dates. Dhanush’s father told him that he had to act in the movie and i
f he didn’t, they would have to abandon the project, pack their bags and leave for Madurai and decide what the future held for them, away from the film industry.
Selva was reluctant to cast his brother, but my father-in-law saw something in Dhanush that nobody else did. He believed that his younger son would make it as an actor. And so the movie was made, though Selva had to give full credit to his more established father as the director to attract distributors. God was kind to them. The movie was a sleeper hit and garnered positive reviews from the critics.
My mother-in-law took to me pretty well. We are stumped by each other’s accent at times, but she has always been very open-minded and understanding. The first time I met her was when Dhanush took me home to meet his sisters. His brother and father weren’t home but his mother was. She was very cool about it, didn’t ask too many questions. I couldn’t help but compare it to how my mother would have reacted in the same situation. One question would have followed another and there would have been no respite for the poor visitor.
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