Mornings are good for her. There is no feeling of wanting to sleep some more, her eyes wide open and mind is racing with new ideas. Actor Urmila Unni always wakes up with a head full of ideas, excited and energetic. Like that morning in 2006, when she woke up with an idea of embellishing Kerala saris with mural paintings. Since she was five, she had always painted. Her dad was an artist. But she is a perfectionist and it took her seven days to finish her first mural painted sari. The idea took shape and got refined. And when she draped the saris on her daughter Uthara, women seeing the sari asked Urmila to paint more saris they could buy. Urmila held exhibitions of her saris, and found an artist Sudheesh Kodencheri to do the painting. Unlike her first attempt, he would finish the painting in a few hours.
Nine years later, one morning, she woke up with another idea — there would be others like her, actors with creative interests, why can’t all of them do a show together? She called up Gayathri, who is passionate about traditional jewellery and Ambika Mohan, who has a unit producing cut work and hand embroidery. Then there was young Niya Renjith with her handpicked churidars and saris. Actor Zeenath along with her friend started an outlet for kurthis, just for the show. All of them have just finished a joint exhibition in Thiruvananthapuram.
“It is Gayathri chechi who is the main coordinator, she is such a good friend,” says Niya Renjith, the youngest of the group. “They call me the new generation artiste,” she laughs. But then Niya too has been in the field for long. It is her acting in so many television series that led to her becoming a fashion entrepreneur. “For serials, we choose our own clothes. There would be ten scenes to shoot in a day and ten clothes for each scene.” The clothes she chose, others seemed to like. She understood variety is what’s important. So, when she opened a store in Ernakulam, she travelled far and wide to collect rare pieces. And because it was television that led her to get interested in designing clothes, she named her shop after the first character she played – ‘Kalyani’.
For Ambika Mohan, it worked the other way around. It is the clothes she designed that brought her to cinema. What started as a pastime to do when kids went off to school became a business that grew fast. “When you do it yourself, there will be no two sets of clothes with the same design.” Among her clientele were the wives of director Kamal and his associate Salim Padiyath. When Kamal wanted someone to play Biju Menon’s sister in Meghamalhar it was Salim who suggested ‘Ambika chechi who stitches for us’. Reluctantly she came forward, but then she fell in love with acting, her role as Jagathy’s wife in Meesha Madhavan gave her th biggest break. Both her passions are dear to her, says Ambika, who is now acting in Padmakumar’s Kanal, Aashiq Abu’s Rani Padmini and Abrid Shine’s Action Hero Biju.
But everyone in the group has not been as active in films. Says Urmila, “New generation films do not need mothers like us, right?” Zeenath echoes her sentiment, “Characters like amma, chechi and chettan are not there anymore. Films with a Malayali thanima (flavour) are rare today, everyone is aping western culture. Though recently, I did do a good character role.” In Gayathri’s case, all her other interests including acting took a back seat when making ornaments became a passion. She would research, travel to places and talk with people to find old traditional designs and has now found more than 350 unique designs, and is converting them into 1 gram gold ornaments. While pursuing their interests and sometimes stumbling on artistic inclinations they didn’t know they had (like Gayathri who didn’t know she could draw before), these women realised there is more ways than one to express their creativity, and that when one door closes, many others open.
