She, Her Own Hero

Malavika Mohanan’s journey from Malayam films to Majid Majidi’s Beyond the Clouds is no less than a fairytale, albeit without a knight in shining armour. This Cinderella needs no rescuing.

- Neena Haridas

My apologies for hurting some sentiments here, but let us admit, we Indians love a Cinderella story. The fantasy of some prince who happens to notice a ‘pretty nobody’ amongst a bevy of lovely ladies eyeing him, while he rushes out holding a glass shoe to find that face in the crowd. And voila! Your life is changed forever the minute you fit into that stupid shoe.

If only life was that beautiful. So when Kerala-born Bombay-bred Malavika Mohanan was chosen for the role of Tara in world-acclaimed Majid Majidi’s film Beyond the Clouds it was impossible for the media to not turn this great achievement into a fairytale. Stories were aplenty: Majidi spotted her on a street in Colaba and said, ‘yes this is my Tara’, ‘Malavika was not even aware she was the chosen one’, ‘Malavika was not even looking for a career in the industry’… all of them well narrated to quench our thirst for that shining prince in armour ending. In a way, it probably is about our collective eternal hope that looks for these little nuggets.

This is what actually happened. “Honestly, it was not like I was discovered out of the blue for this role. I had to work hard. My first film was Pattam Pole with Malayalam superstar Mammootty’s son Dulquer Salmaan, who is again a big star and is now hitting Hindi cinema. So, if you actually ask me it was Mammootty who “discovered” me. I was on the sets and he said, “So do you want to give it a try? Until then cinema was passion for me, not exactly a career option. I thought about it, and agreed after I asked what the story and the script was. I think the fact that the world of cinema is not a mirage helps me take the right decisions that will eventually help my career or how it will turn.”