Why I love Nitya Menon

When I was a little girl, the only actress I knew was Soundarya garu, there was something about her that made me feel she was real. I believed that Anjali in Raja, Seeta in Intlo illalu vantintlo priyuralu were people whom I knew, that’s how much I was bought in by her acting. I was 5 when I heard that she died in a plane crash, though I was very small , I remember that, the news made me sad.

After that I watched a lot of movies, a lot of actresses performed but none of them made me feel that they were real. In my early teens I watched a beautiful movie Ala Modalaindi, it was a well written movie, but what made it special, were its actors Nani and Nitya Menon. After a long time I felt again that the character Nitya in the movie was real. After that there were many movies of hers that came in, few were big hits and few did not work well, but in all the movies her performance was ideal. When I questioned myself, what made her similar to Soundarya Garu and what made her different from the other actresses at that time,I found an interesting aspect within myself.

We all grow in an environment which trains are mind that a girl of certain height, weight and complexion is considered pretty, as a reflection of that thought, in all our movies we see female leads usually tall, fair and thin. And most of the characters would only come in the movie for song and dance, there is no proper characteristic arc for these characters. That always made me feel uncertain of my own beauty and questioning myself, am I only worth a song and dance in a mans life.

Our parents generation always had good female leads like Savitri garu, Sri Devi garu around whom movies were made.

Somewhere in the middle movies turned out to be just about men, but now actresses like Nitya Menen, Samantha, Keerthi Suresh, Anushka and many more are making movies of real people with real stories. This will make the woman watching the movie more confident and make them feel more important.

But watching Soundarya garu, Nitya Menen movies, made me feel, there is more to me than just the beauty or the song and dance. The characters they played were like woman like my mom, my sister and more importantly me. They were all relatable.

-Bhavya Samhitha. M