Bollywood Banter

On Christmas Day, a Tamil film by the name of Pachaikili Muthucharam will hit cinemas in India. Said to be a partial remake of 2005’s dull Hollywood thriller Derailed, the movie holds little interest save for one distinction - it will be the last silver screen appearance of beloved south Indian film actress Jothika. On September 11th, she married fellow actor Surya and shortly thereafter announced she was retiring from the movie industry after eight years. The news came as anything but a shock, as it has been the practise for years for Indian actresses to call it a day after settling down. However, unlike in Bollywood where there is a clamouring for wedded women such as Madhuri Dixit and Sridevi to make a comeback, the more conservative southern population are happy for the wives to stay at home rather than carry on working. So while Jothika’s adieu made few headlines in Kollywood and Tollywood, it didn’t even make so much as a blip in the north where she is almost unknown thanks to the minute exposure most Tamil and Telugu movies receive outside their own territories. After being one of India’s most successful and celebrated superstar actresses of the past decade, it seems a shame her departure will meet with little more than a shrug from so many.

Daughter of film producer Chander Sadanah and sister of actress Nagma, Bombay-born Jothika Sadanah began her career in Bollywood with the lead role in 1998’s Hindi musical Doli Saja Ke Rakhna alongside Akshaye Khanna. An unremarkable romantic drama (made livelier thanks to the stirring music of A.R. Rehman), the film bombed at the Indian box office upon release. Jo’s own performance too lacked spark and she soon decided to try her luck in Madras’s Tamil movie industry instead. Worlds apart from Bollywood’s candy floss productions, Tamil cinema for the most part has stuck to a rigid crowd-pleasing formula of heavyset, mustachioed heroes, fair-skinned heroines just turning 21, violent and bloody (not to mention badly choreographed) action scenes, irrelevant song numbers/comedy interludes and some themes of political corruption and family values thrown in for good measure. But despite a lack of decent female roles and Jo’s own inability to speak Tamil, her transition to southern films was a successful one thanks to an excellent dubbing artist, a bubbly personality transplant and a good few pounds added on which made her stand out - in more ways than one.

Jothika burst onto Tamil theater screens in 1999 with the Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge-esque romance Poovellam Kettuppar, co-starring future spouse Surya. Her introductory song, set amongst a sea of flowers, saw her exude exuberance with some simple yet well-performed dance moves. Her chubby-cheeked grin and cheerful charisma shined brightly - this was clearly a different Jo from the demure girl last seen in DSKR. After Poovellam Kettuppar proved to be a hit with the masses, it seemed Jothika had found her home. She soon solidified her newly-earned success in 2000 with Kushi (’Happiness’), a romantic comedy with Vijay that is best remembered for her outstanding rain song ‘Megham Karukkudhu’ picturised with Jo dancing with gay abandon in a rural village. The movie was later remade with the same title in Bollywood starring Kareena Kapoor, but Kareena’s skinny frame and forced enthusiasm were no match for Jo’s thunder thighs and effortless charm.

Making a splash: Jothika in 2000’s Kushi

Jothika spent the following years enjoying further success, expanding into Telugu cinema as well as starring alongside virtually all of south India’s biggest male stars such as Kamal Haasan, Rajnikanth, Ajith Kumar and Prabhu Deva. By sticking to the most commercial of film roles, she managed to maintain her popularity, all the while continuing to steal the show with her high-spirited, OTT antics. By the time 2005’s spooky comedy Chandramukhi with Tamil megastar Rajnikanth came along (one of the biggest Indian hits of the decade), she was the undisputed queen of south Indian cinema. It could be said that Jo’s choice to stay a star rather than dip into some less-mainstream movie parts severely limited the kind of career she could have had. Indeed, few of Jothika’s thirty-one films play that well outside of south India and none can certainly be considered classics. One very special thing does stand out in all of them though, and that is Jo herself. Her performances were always entertaining no matter what kind of bog-standard masala trip she found herself in. Jothika brought such a strong personailty and fervour to her films, the likes of which her true fans will never forget.

Don’t stay away forever, Jo!