Actor Urvashi has opened up about why she chose not to pay a visit to the mortal remains of her mentor, filmmaker K Bhagyaraj, or attend his funeral, saying she wanted to preserve the image of him as she had always known him rather than remember him in death.
K Bhagyaraj passed away on June 27 at the age of 73 after suffering from a cardiac arrest. His funeral took place with state honours, as ordained by Tamil Nadu chief minister C Joseph Vijay.
Speaking in a recent interview with Galatta, Urvashi said there was a "cruel reason" behind the public scrutiny over her absence and stressed that she did not feel the need to explain her emotions before the media. "There was a cruel reason behind why they were searching for me, wasn't there? If I had come to see his mortal remains, I knew I had to react. What that reaction was—they (the media) know. I don't want to display it in front of everyone. My sir's soul knows, and his family knows. That's enough for me," she said.
Urvashi confirmed that she had spoken to Bhagyaraj's wife, Poornima Bhagyaraj, privately following his passing. She explained that she was not emotionally strong enough to face the situation in public and did not want to turn her grief into what she described as an "emotional drama."
"As far as I'm concerned, I don't have the emotional strength right now to bear everything that's happening. So there's no need to become overly emotional in front of the media or create an emotional drama," she said.
The actor added that public reactions would always be divided regardless of what she did. "After all, how many people will believe it's genuine, and how many will say it's fake? There's no place for those kinds of criticisms. Sometimes we can't control ourselves, and sometimes we can't even control our emotions."
Remembering Bhagyaraj as a teacher who always encouraged her to smile, Urvashi said he disliked seeing her cry and that she wanted to honour that memory. "I've always wanted to smile, joke and laugh—that's what he liked too. I was one of his favourite students. He never liked seeing me cry," she recalled.
She admitted she could not bring herself to see him after his passing. "How could I bear to see him lying there like that? I just didn't have the strength. I simply couldn't." Instead, Urvashi said she prefers to remember Bhagyaraj as the person she knew throughout her life. "In my heart, he is still alive—walking around in that coat and suit, looking handsome. That's how I want to remember him."
Revealing that she did not even look at his body in the ice box, she concluded, "I couldn't even bring myself to look at him in the ice box at the end. There was no need for that. I don't want to remember him as a lifeless body. The image of him walking around with grace is still alive in my eyes, and that's enough for me."
Urvashi made her debut in a lead role in Bhagyaraj's Munthanai Mudichu in 1983, when she was just 13. She also starred in Bhagyaraj's Dhavani Kanavugal and Thaikulame Thaikulame, for which he served as writer.
