COLUMN: Spouse's Turn
Vani
Viswanath talks about life with the actor Baburaj
By
Shevlin Sebastian
Photo by Albin Mathew
One
day, in October, 1998, Vani Viswanath got a call at her home in
Chennai. The director J. Williams wanted to come and narrate a story.
Vani said yes. But when Williams arrived, he was accompanied by
Mollywood villain Baburaj.
Vani
assumed that Williams would be narrating the story, but it turned out
to be Baburaj who had written the script. Vani thought to
herself, 'Does he
have the capacity to narrate a story?'
But
Vani got a surprise. “When he began speaking, I stopped listening
to the story and was taken up by the way he was talking, the gestures
he was making, and the smile on his face,” says Vani. “He was
speaking in a much better way than most scriptwriters. I decided to
say yes, just because of the way Baburaj was telling the story.”
The
film was 'The Gang'. During the shoot, at Kochi, Vani suddenly
panicked about whether she would get paid. So she sent a message to
Baburaj, who was the producer. Immediately, he provided the payment.
But
that same evening, Baburaj called Vani and said, “I need some money
urgently. So can you give it back? I promise that I will pay it
tomorrow morning.”
But
Vani told him that she had already sent the money to her father at
Thrissur. “Later, when we got close, he asked me whether I had
actually given the money to my father. I said, 'Of course not,'”
says Vani, with a laugh. “There was no way I would return money to
a producer. Because I knew I would never get it back.”
Nevertheless,
Vani and Baburaj acted in another film, a Tamil one called 'Jaya'. In
this movie, the lovers, played by Vani and Baburaj, have a physical
fight. “We were hitting each other and blood was coming out of our
mouths,” says Vani.
However,
in real life, the couple were falling in love. After two years of
courtship, they decided to get married. There were objections from
both families, because Vani is a Hindu while Baburaj is a Christian.
Nevertheless, both stayed firm and the marriage took place on
February 28, 2002, at the Tirupathi Temple.
“When
the rituals were going on, I was thinking about the many marriages
that I had taken part in Tamil and Malayalam movies” says Vani.
“The only difference was that this time it was for real. And I
would become a mother in future.”
Yes,
indeed, she did become a mother, to Aarcha,
11, and Adhri, 6. “Baburaj is a far better father than husband,”
says a frank Vani. “He gives them a lot of care and affection. For
his son, he has filled his bedroom with posters and figures of ‘Hulk,
‘Iron Man’ and ‘Superman’, because Adhri likes them. For
Aarcha, she likes small items like pens. So, Baburaj will buy
expensive brands like Cross and Parker.”
Meanwhile,
these 12 years have been a topsy-turvy ride for both of them.
“Baburaj is a capable person,” says Vani. “Once we needed to
put tiles on the floors of our house in Chennai, and he said, ‘What's
so difficult about that? We can do it.’ If the TV set goes bad, he
will repair it. Baburaj can do painting and electrical works. He is
also a good cook and can make tasty chicken and fish curries.” So,
it was no surprise that Baburaj’s breakout role was as a cook in
the film, ‘Salt N’ Pepper’.
To
Vani, Baburaj is a larger-than-life person. “When he gets angry, it
is to the extreme,” she says. “But the next moment, he forgets
everything. When I remind him, he will say, 'Did I say that? I don't
remember'. When he is loving, he is overwhelming. And that is also
the case when he is in a humourous mood.”
Incidentally,
thanks to Baburaj, Vani has become a passionate cricket fan. One
day, during their courtship, Vani asked Babu to rush her to the
Chennai railway station. She needed to catch a train to Thrissur.
Baburaj drove fast and furiously. After a while, he suddenly braked
the car and went inside a shop, did not buy anything, and came back
in a minute. Then he drove fast again. At the station Vani managed to
get the train. Once the train left, a puzzled Vani called him on the
mobile and asked him why he had stopped at the shop. He said, “Molle,
India is playing a cricket match. I wanted to know the score.”
That
was when Vani decided she had to know how the game is played. Once
Baburaj explained the rules, Vani became a passionate fan. “I also
love football and like Adriano the Brazilian footballer,” she says.
“So I took the first half of the name, and named my son Adhri.”
Finally,
when asked for tips on marriage, Vani says, “Between me and
Baburaj, there were more than a thousand times when we could have
divorced each other. We can divorce tomorrow, too. But the challenge
is to remain together. It is not that everybody will get a good
husband or wife. The wife might say my husband is a big problem. But
maybe, the problem is with the wife. So you should learn to accept
each other.”
(The New Indian Express, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram)
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