Last Wednesday when the trailer for Uyare came out, the comments were mostly full of love for the lead actor Parvathy Thiruvothu. There was no more the hate-filled comments her Facebook and Twitter pages had been full of till a few months ago.
“I think there was a lot of time for people to realise that a lot of the attack, a lot of the hatred, was orchestrated. It was an organised crime and that has a shelf life,” Parvathy says on a day she is packed with interviews ahead of Uyare. A movie she was sold on the moment she heard it was about an acid attack survivor. And the rare milieu that it was set in – that of a girl studying to be a pilot.
“I love flying, I am one of those persons who has the urge -- when you stand on a cliff – to fly (sings), not jump, but fly,” she says cheerfully.
It is a happy face, the months – years of having to put up with backlash for a comment she made that was blown up – are way behind her. The people who stood by her and the strangers who sent supportive messages from far away helped. “If I see one message from someone that says you standing your ground has helped me stand my ground – and there are many who write to me like that – they are the constant source of my strength. That community has just grown now. We also realise being there for each other is much easier and much better and asking for help isn’t the worst thing.”
She knew when she took up the role of an acid attack survivor called Pallavi, it would not be kind to ask too many questions of real life victims. Parvathy is known for the tedious research she does for every character she portrays. But having gone through a trauma herself, she knew how hard it was to answer the same questions over and over again. “It is criminal to ask them more unless you are a psychiatrist or a psychologist. Sometimes I am asked the same question again and again – especially in the last two years with all the controversies. After a point you just feel badgered. But why do I still talk and why do they talk? It is to raise awareness that they exist, that there is something majorly flawed in our system. Why do we still have acid that can be bought over the counter?”
So she asked them about the minute details of life – what do they do when they feel pain, what medicines do they take, is there a special kind of soap they use, does it hurt when they go out in the sun. “It is not just the trauma of people not looking at you when you go out. That is trauma too but what do they go through when they are alone?”
Still from Uyare
Parvathy could play that role, she’s been playing bold, strong women for long now – as the lover of Moideen who never gave up or the nurse in a riot-torn country who led others like her to safety. It is probably a stereotype women actors would like to have – to be entrusted with that character on whom the whole movie rests. But then, you wonder if she has another side, which can make people laugh, do comedy. The audience is ready, she is too, she says. “I am going to make a conscious effort to branch out. I love comedy. Comedy is even a better way to say something serious. I am not Ms Funnybones. Except with the lemons thrown at me in the last two years, the sarcasm in me has increased. I was this delicate darling, made of butter. I am totally hardened now. I have the ability to laugh at myself now.”
You can see that when you interact with her for more than a few minutes. For some reason, people seem to think she is someone to be afraid of, she says, and Parvathy would like to correct that impression. “They think I am a puritan or something. Like I don’t curse. (No! left, right, centre.) They think I get angry soon. That is true but I also love really well. I am a hopeless romantic. A hopeless lover of people. I forgive easy. I cry easy because I feel deep.”
She is actually a fun person, she says, and shows off her hidden talents – viz., the ability to make burps on cue, to move her eyeballs in either direction one at a time, to sing (‘Cherathukal’ from Kumbalangi Nights after a brief apology to Sithu – Sithara – who sang the original). She writes too, but that’s private. In all, she is a “marshmallow” and she would like to show another side of hers in movies too.
She has said no to two intense stories now, she says, movies that she knows for sure would turn out well. But the kind of movie that she’d like to make – if she had loads of money and she could – would be a psychological thriller. And she already has a cast in mind – Rima, Nimisha and Aparna Balamurali.
If she doesn’t have a lot of money, she’d make a love story – but it will be about the love in the lack of love. And she would very happily cast herself opposite Jake Gyllenhaal, she says with a really big smile that is just so catching.
Santhosham kondenikirikan vayya – she quotes the line people say from an old Malayalam movie when they are really happy. There are such exciting projects waiting for her and for the first time she is collaborating with her friends, Parvathy says. “All kinds of projects – on digital platforms, on the street for plays, dance productions, movies, theatre. What matters is we are creating work.”
It is friends who stood with her – who got “filtered” – when she went through phases of fear and looked for courage to get over it. “Those who remain are those who keep you accountable for your words and actions – not just to others but to yourself. It is an achievement,” she says.
Parvathy leaves (for her next interview) with a little message for election time. “Listen. Pay attention. Not just to these scores of WhatsApp videos and campaigns. But also to how you are being manipulated. It has always been like that with politics. But this is a scary time. There is corruption everywhere. But you have got to know how to pick the lesser evil. If you don’t go through each candidate objectively with all the accounts of the stories you hear about them and the parties and their ideologies, there is such a difference between the ideology and the actual practice of it. Make as many conversations and debates with friends as possible. It is worth even losing a friend over it. Put politics first. Be a good citizen. Don’t be a fool. Don’t think that lack of participation won’t affect anyone. It affects people like Pallavi in Uyare.”
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