The two films which she has done — Parankimala in Malayalam and Ivan Chiranjeevi in Tamil — are not out. She is middle aged and lives in the US with her husband and two sons. How then did Mini Richard become a ‘sex bomb’ and manage to fire the fantasies of thousands of Malayali men who bombard her Facebook page every day with admiring comments? “I was myself surprised with the response,” says Mini, at her apartment in Kochi.
She has come down to Kerala to explore a couple of film offers. There was a post in her page about a TV interview and some youngsters had apparently camped themselves in front of the channel’s office to catch a glimpse of her. “It is not only boys. I was invited to a fashion show in Kochi the other day and two girls demanded a photo with me,” she says. Noticing some of the passionate comments from her Facebook fans, her anxious husband asked her if they needed to hire a bodyguard during her stay in Kerala.
Many years ago, Mini had gone to the US to pursue her studies. It was at a party that she ran into Richard Labus, who was then a manager with a software company and set up his own business later. Richard was keen on dating her but Mini told him that her culture didn’t allow it. Eventually, they fell in love and had a register marriage. “It was after the kids were born that we had a traditional marriage in the church,” says Mini.
The film bug bit her in her thirties after she got a chance to appear in a scene in a Telugu film that was shot in the US. “I was always interested in dance and singing and when I expressed my wish to act in films, my husband was fully supportive.” Was it a deliberate ploy to post glamorous photos to earn a fan following? “Hardly. I have always been a little bold. We have only one life and we have to be happy rather than try to justify our actions to others,” she argues. “Where I live, it is completely normal to wear a dress that shows cleavage or be in a swim suit. Honestly, these pictures were never shot for the page. But then, the number of followers started increasing and they began waiting for the photos. Then I started putting them up every Friday with ‘hugs and kisses’.” She claims that she now has close to a million followers.
What is her assessment of the average Malayali male? “He goes overboard when he surfs the Net in the comfort of his home. But he is shy when you meet him in person. Most of them are sexually repressed. One big problem is that couples do not communicate with each other properly and express their fantasies to each other. That’s why the men look elsewhere for pleasure.”
Her phone rings. It is a director who wants her to play an important role. Vijayakumar K.G. confirms that he wants to cast her in his forthcoming film, Bombay R Street. “It is a story of a Malayali girl who finds herself in the red light area and is rescued by a man,” says the director.
