Parvathy | Sreekanth Kalarikkal
She is Parvathy and she prefers not to have a surname. She is a vegan, a feminist, and a self-proclaimed introvert who believes in “demolishing all stereotypes”. Her favourite books include The Light of My father’s Smile by Alice Walker and Khasakkinte Ithihasam by O.V. Vijayan. Her favourite actors are Naseeruddin Shah, Bharat Gopi, Shabana Azmi, Srividya and Smitha Patil.
At the International Film Festival of India held in Goa, Parvathy was chosen the best female actor. Rightly so: her brilliant performance in Take Off, a Malayalam film based on the story of the nurses who were trapped in Iraq’s Tikrit region during the war between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants was brilliant. In recent weeks, her first Hindi film, Qarib Qarib Singlle directed by Tanuja Chandra in which she essayed the role of a 35-year-old divorcee, has done decent business at the box office. But if you ask this English literature postgraduate which Khan would she like to work with next, she will tell you that it should not even be a question. Diplomacy is definitely not her forte. “Parvathy has always stood out as she has a mind of her own. She is an avid reader and very curious about the world outside,’’ said Sangeetha Padmanabhan, a film professional who has known Parvathy for long.
Parvathy has this cerebral aura about her and she refuses to play down her intelligence to suit the norms of the patriarchal film industry. “I would like to believe that I am normal. But yes, I never try to fit in. It is OK with me if you don’t like me,” said Parvathy.
Born to lawyer parents, this 29-year-old made a mark for herself as an anchor during her college days. That was how she got noticed, leading to a role in the Malayalam film Out of Syllabus. But the film was a flop. She got noticed as an actor with her second film Notebook which was released in 2006.
Around that time, she acted in Milana, a Kannada film which was a super hit. She followed it up with a brilliant role in the Tamil film Poo in which she played a village girl who worked in a firecracker factory. Parvathy spent weeks in villages to get the nuances of her character right. She won the Filmfare award for best female actor for the film. “Parvathy gets totally into her characters. At times, she finds it difficult to get the characters out of her system,’’ said Mahesh Narayanan, who directed her in Take Off.
Parvathy joined the big league of commercial cinema with the 2015 Malayalam film Bangalore Days in which she played a radio jockey called Sarah, a differently-abled girl full of energy. The film directed by Anjali Menon was a super hit and was remade in other languages. Despite cementing her place in the A-list, Parvathy remains selective. She takes a break after every film and sets off to distant places all alone with just a backpack.
Her next prominent role was of Kanchanamala in Ennu Ninte Moideen, a tragic love story of Kanchana and Moideen, which was the cinematic adaptation of a real life story from the 1960s. Parvathy immortalised the role of Kanchana, who lived her life in the memory of her dead lover. She won the Kerala state award for best female actor in 2015 for her performance in Moideen and another movie titled Charlie. Take Off was her next big release and it won critical and commercial acclaim. In it, Parvathy played the role of a nurse called Sameera, who was trapped in an IS stronghold in Iraq.
“I had no one else other than Parvathy in my mind when the role was conceived,’’ said Narayanan. Parvathy had no hesitation to act as the mother of an eight-year-old child,” he said. “Her character carried the entire film. Nobody but Parvathy could do justice to that role.’’
Parvathy did a lot of homework for the role. She visited hospitals and spent time with nurses. “She imbibed minute details about nurses—the way they go about their hectic schedules, how they communicate among themselves and how they looked after long hours of duty. But she did not imitate any of them,’’ said Narayanan.
Members of the jury at Goa, too, had similar words. They praised the consistency of her performance through the film. While receiving the award—which she dedicated to the nurses from Kerala—Parvathy said she was representing women who were forever thinking about where their next meal would come from or how to pay off their loans and take care of their family. “She lived her role. Watching her, we felt that she was one of us,’’ said Siny Mathews, a nurse in Kottayam.
Parvathy is an active member of the Women in Cinema Collective, a group of film professionals formed after the controversial abduction and rape case involving Malayalam superstar Dileep and a prominent female actor. She is vocal about women’s rights and is proud to be identified as a feminist. It is with the same spirit that she openly talks about casting couch and victim shaming in the Malayalam film industry. “I have not faced it in any other industry, only in Malayalam,’’ she said recently.
Even as Bollywood is looking her up following the success of Qarib Qarib Singlle, Parvathy is clear that she will not stick to the ideal body image that Bollywood is so obsessed with. To a question whether she belongs to the ‘lucky body types’ (the ones who do not put on weight), she replied, “Of course, I am lucky. I get food on my plate every day’’.
