The spotlights were on ...
MALATHI RANGARAJAN
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The March session of Lights On showcased four film personalities.
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PHOTO: S.S.Kumar
INTERACTION, BOTH LIGHT AND SERIOUS: At the show
The 19th edition of Lights On at Sathyam Cinemas, Chennai, was a `Take Four' this time — Suhasini, Revathy, Rohini and Prakash Raj comprised the quartet. Each had known the other for a long while and so the comfort quotient was just right. And once Prakash set the ball rolling with his first query, the camaraderie got contagious.
The three women were the fulcrum of the show, said Prakash, and preferred to remain in the background. He couldn't contain his quips though. When a question from the audience was about heroines being mere props in films, "Not just property, hot property," he laughed. Sadly some of his humorous asides weren't audible because the mike just refused to co-operate that evening.
What they've learnt
Suhasini's aspiration during her school days was to become a martinet in a bank, with at least 20 men working under her! "I was a rebel — immature but confident. Cinema taught me humility and obedience," she said. In fact throughout the session Suhasini took you by surprise with her candour. Rohini, however, modestly noted that she was still learning to act and only recently discovered she could write too! "Cinema has given me confidence," she said. "I understood team spirit here. We may have our likes and dislikes while working in a film. But at the end of it everyone from the light boy wants the film to do well," Revathy said. The responses didn't always answer Prakash's posers, yet they helped get glimpses of how these thinking women have evolved over the years as socially conscious individuals.
"So what have you given cinema in return?" was one of the queries. "I want to leave a mark. My best is yet to come," Revathy said. "And I've refused to enact scenes which I couldn't accept. Like when Visu wanted me to fall at my husband's feet in `Kudumbam Oru Kadambam,' I refused. That kind of paved the way for other heroines to put their foot down if they weren't convinced with what they had to do. And from a family of lawyers my family now has more of actors," was Suhasini's statement.
How did they feel as teenagers when they were paired with heroes more than twice their age? "I'm curious. Because as teenagers, most of the time you didn't grow up with people of your age group," Prakash said. "On the flip side, our way of thinking and life style off the sets were a culture shock to some of them. But seriously, it was safe to work with married men because they know how to take care of women," Suhasini observed. "At 17, I could be myself only in my home. Otherwise I had to behave in a way that was totally alien to me," remembered Revathy. And this is the only profession where you needn't fill up an application form which asks for your caste or the colour of your skin, observed Revathy amidst applause.
Revathy was furious that once heroines step into their thirties they are earmarked to play the stereotypical mother, sister or doctor ("Or professor," Suhasini prompted.) "Even if it's two scenes I would like them to be challenging," she said. At times Prakash's expression seemed to say that he wasn't quite satisfied with their replies.
Named `Lights On' paradoxically, the show generally happens in a dimly lit ambience. Nowadays the proscenium is comparatively bright, but the audience that evening wanted more illumination. Despite Prakash trying to make it light saying, "Am I not bright enough?"
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