Wherever I go, I go in time. I'm not in the habit of making people wait. Therefore I had gone to the Canada Airport five minutes in advance. On that day of all days, the flight had arrived 25 minutes early and made me late. There was already a huge crowd there.

I hadn't seen Padmini in real life - I had only seen her in the movies. So I had wondered whether I would be able to recognize her. She had dressed ordinarily and didn't even wear makeup. Those who had come to welcome her and those who had happened to see her surrounded her. Can you believe she was seventy? Yet there was a light around her. In that moment I knew that her title "Ulaga naatiya Peroli[1]" was fully befitting her.

A friend of mine is a friend of hers.[2] Padmini had come to head a dance event organized by him. At this time the arrangement was that Padmini stays in my house for three days.

In exactly half an hour after Padmini landed on Canada, a question was asked of her. In the world's widest 401 highway, when the car was at a distance of twenty miles from the airport and fifty miles from my house, the question was asked. Snow was falling heavily outside. The car slipped along on the road, on the snow, without reducing its speed. This question had apparently lived in the heart of the lady who had come to see Padmini, for thirty five years. Now it came out[3] heavily. "Why didn't you marry Sivaji?"

This was the question. With a stupidity equalled by an obstinacy, and with an artlessness mingled with the obstinacy, the fifty year old woman asked this question. Padmini looks at me, then looks at the person who had asked this question. She didn't reply. The question whirled around inside the car that had been enclosed by glass on all four sides and dropped down. In the three days that Padmini stays there, various people ask this question to her at least twenty times. Don't they have any other question? But Padmini was not as amazed as I was. She looked like she was very used to this question.

I had noticed that there was a tiny lightning in her eyes whenever there was talk of Sivaji. Someone asked, "Do you remember when you met Sivaji the first time?"

"Sivaji hadn't yet come to the movies. I had already started acting and was famous. I had gone to see the drama Rathakanneer. It was M.R.Radha's drama. In that drama Sivaji didn't have a part at all. He still stood at the back of the stage and was helping around. When he saw me, he openly said that his desire was to act at least once in his life with me. I didn't know then, and he didn't know either, that we would act continuously in sixty movies.

The days when I acted with him are unforgettable. If the shooting was at 8, he would come and sit at 7:55. When we arrive after the usual makeup, the time would have become 9. Patiently he would ask "Paaps[4]! So, is the lunch over?".

He often said something or the other and made [people] laugh. When I walked down moving correctly like a heroine of those days holding the sari's thailapu[5] aloft, he would make fun of me asking "Ennama?[6] Are you drying the clothes?" and force us to do that shot again and again. He would turn around and search for the group dancers if we are shooting a love song, and say "Enna papps! I can't find the devils[7]!". At other times when it is boring, he would say "It's been a while since I coughed! Give me a cigarette if you got one." He would keep making [me/people] laugh like this. It would be pretty difficult if there was a weepy scene next."


Padmini's first movie was Manamagal, made by N.S.Krishnan. The three sisters had acted in that movie. I was studying in a boarding school then. Everyone who was studying with me had seen the movie and praised it to the skies. A determination was born in me to see Padmini one way or the other. Shanmugarathinam (Shan) who studied with me agreed with it.

Shan used to be thin with his backbones showing up on the back. He used to change the clothes he wore on Monday only on Friday. One night, in secret, I jumped over the gate and went with him to see the second show. In that movie, Padmini's beauty and dance were close[8]. In a scene, she looked through her hair at me alone and laughed. After that whenever our tamil teacher said "seri eyitru arivai"[9], Padmini's close teeth would appear before me and disturb me. We missed the bus when we returned and walked the 12 miles. Crossing through maravalli kizhangu patches with the stars showing us the way, Shan walked in the front. I followed. What lack of joy could there be, when there were so many stars crowding the sky? "<song lines>", sang Shan. The street dogs looked at us hastening our journey.

When we returned the gate was locked. Neither the warden nor the watchman nor anyone else had left it open for us by mistake. Joseph master who had learned physics was the warden to us-who-had-come-from-kerala. He was really strict. We climbed the gate and jumped. If I had been caught by the warden that day, I would not be writing his essay today. Shan wouldn't be researching deep sea paths.

Padmini laughed hearing this story. Who knows how many such stories she had heard!

<There is a reference here that I don't understand to a dancer from 300 years ago>. The year was 1959. Padmini had come to Ceylon in the "Queen Elizabeth" ship and did a dance drama, changing a lot of things. There was a new desire and enthusiasm among our girls to learn Bharatanatyam. I told her I didn't know about the others but she was responsible for my sisters learning Bharatanatyam. She apologized forty years late.

<Ok I hate translating what follows> Before Padmini's time, in tamil movies, whenever the hero embraced his lover, the lover would fold both her hands in the front like a shield and protect her chest as if it was a fort. While Padmini acted, this ceremony was broken. In Vanjikottai Valiban, Gemini embraced Padmini along with the fort and terrace and satisfied his and the fans' desires.

There was an episode that happened during the shooting of this movie that had made Padmini cry. As usual Vasan had decided to make this movie on a huge scale. At that point, Padmini was a leading star in tamil. Vyjeyanthimala was famous in hindi movies.

Isn't there a danceoff between Aishwarya Rai and Mathuri Thitchit in Devdas? There is a similar, famous dance competition in Vanjikottai Valiban. A dance master called Hiralal taught the dance steps to both the dancing queens. Vasan had a principle. Everyone who worked for him had to be past seventy. Makeup, light boy, cameraman, dialogue writer - all these people were of Vasan's age. Moving a lamp would take half an hour. So the shooting moved at a tortoise's speed. Padmini had other shootings. Vyjeyanthimala had come just for this movie from the north. Whenever Padmini was not around, Vyjeyanthimala practised the dance steps with Hiralal. During the shooting, Padmini's dance was perfect. Vyjeyanthimala was not transfixed. Saying "Don't talk smart, answer my anklets", she would appear like a tornado on the stage with her hair whirling at her shoulders and sparks flying from her feet. Once while dancing like this, Padmini's shadow fell on Vyjeyanthimala. Padmini stopped the dance with respect and said "My shadow fell on you..." Immediately Vyjeyanthimala said in english, "It's only a passing shadow", with twin meaning. That she had called tamil nadu's first actress as a "passing shadow" wounded Padmini. She said she had cried for two nights for those two words. When the movie was released, no one was left in any doubt as to who the dancing queen was.


In "Ethirpaaraathathu", Sivaji was as usual Padmini's lover. Because of circumstances, Padmini becomes wife to Sivaji's father Naagaiyah. The lover is now in a son's place. In a scene, Sivaji approaches Padmini with the past thoughts and Padmini slaps him. When the movie was shot, in the heat of the moment, Padmini slapped Sivaji for real. Sivaji's cheek was swollen and he didn't show up for shooting for three days. On the third day, Padmini goes to Sivaji's house to see him. She presented him with a Fiat car. That was Sivaji's first car.


Padmini's memory is amazing. Whenever she describes an event, she would start with the year when it happened. She would start "While I danced in the 1944 Uday Shankar's Kalpana..." and then give you the details. She remembers movies along with the producer's name, the director's name, the list of actors, everything. A huge database works in her brain without a virus affecting it.


Padmini's costume/makeup for the event was fantastic. The lipstick flowed on her lips as if she had drunk honey in the dark. The embroidered sari was as heavy as she was. On both her hands were the bangles counted again and again for correctness. Except for the tiny crease on her face, like an angel missing only one of her feathers, she looked just like the Padmini who had appeared in the M.P.Nagarajan's Vilayaatupillai movie of those days.


I had heard that she used to learn long lines of dialogue while the makeup was being applied. Unlike these days, the actresses had to speak their own lines in those days. But she became a new padmini the moment she got on to the stage. Like a skilled speaker, she remembered the names of all the people involved in the event and wrapped up her speech quickly. In those few minutes, the audience were dazed by her presence and kept shouting "Nalamthaanaa? Nalamthaanaa?[10]".


"When did you meet Sivaji for the last time?"

"I had gone to see him two years before his death. Sivaji had become thin and changed in looks. He could not drink even water as much as he wanted. Only a glass of water per day. If he drank even a little more than that, the body would swell. So one had to be very careful. Sivaji stayed in the upper floor. Didn't come downstairs. Whoever came to see him saw him in the upper floor and left. Sivaji was a lover of food. Just like me. I like the same things he liked. On that day, the table was full of dishes. Kadai, kaudari, chicken, mutton, fish, shrimp - they had prepared all the meat dishes I loved.

Sivaji could not eat a single thing in that. Despite that they had made all those dishes for me. Four people brought him from the upper floor, on a chair. He sat next to me and said "Eat, amma. Eat well." It was horrible that he knew the taste of food and could not eat it. He simply looked at all the dishes. That is my last memory. I now wish that it had been something else."

There is nothing that I haven't read about caste. I have read from Daniel's Panjamar novel and Mathavaiyah's "Kannan perum thoothu" short story to the recent Jayamogan's "Kadaisi varai" short story. Despite that, some things still shock you when you hear them.

The time was around 6 in the evening. Padmini wore a yellow-bordered white chudidar and sat on the sofa, in peace, with one leg thrown over the other. She didn't drink tea or coffee, and was sipping juice from a glass in tiny amounts. It was a moment when the body and the soul mingled. Her conversation had started somewhere and floated along, touching random places. She said suddenly, "I was a Naayar girl. He belonged to the Kallar caste. Was it a thing that could happen?"

I was shocked. I didn't understand her words at first. She was answering the question that had been asked more than twenty times in the last two days. Her eyes shined and revealed that.

My telephone stopped ringing on the day Padmini left. The journalists's nagging stopped. The noise of the guests who had arrived either telling us in advance or not informing us at all ceased. The sound of the running steps on the stairs and Padmini's ceaseless talk faded. Suddenly it felt like there was darkness in the house again.

There was still something to gain. When the "light of dance" left, she left a tiny bit of light for me. When I go to walk in the roads or eat in a restaurant, in the video station and shops, people say hi to me.



[1] The world's light of dance
[2] Literally, "a friend of mine was someone needed by her", but that's just an idiom.
[3] Literally, "now it came out heavily with compounded interest".
[4] whatever that may be!
[5] It's that trailing part of the sari used variously to mop, hold, let fly, etc.
[6] A question word addressed to a girl/woman.
[7] devils that make a lot of noise
[8] not sure exactly what he means. Literally, the word means "intimate".
[9] it's ancient tamil and I've no clue as to its meaning. Probably an ancient sort of love.
[10] Nalamthana is her famous song from Thillana Mohanambal.