It has been over 40 years since the release of director K Balachander's critically acclaimed film Sindhu Bhairavi, starring Suhasini Maniratnam, Sivakumar, and Sulakshana. Suhasini talked about her experience working on the film in a recent interview.
Speaking to Sudhir Srinivasan, the actor said that there were signs of a successful film right at the start of production itself. "I still do not understand why so many people would come up to me and say, 'This film is going to achieve success' even only a few days into production," she said.
Sindhu Bhairavi started production at the garden in KR Vijaya's house in Chennai. During its production at the venue, Suhasini had a meeting with Jayasudha, an actor whom she "really admired" at the time. "I respect her a lot as an actress because it's not like her first film was a big hit. She came up the ranks step by step, a bit like Kamal Haasan," Suhasini said about Jayasudha.
During the meeting, Jayasudha told Suhasini that she was acting exceedingly well for the film. The actor was only 23 years old at the time and initially found Jayasudha's compliment from out of nowhere overwhelming. "I wondered whether I was doing something wrong in the film," she said about what she felt immediately after the compliment. When she asked Jayasudha about the reason for it, the latter told her that everyone would know an actor working in a K Balachander film. "She told me that even though she was working in Telugu at the time, she was following my work. She told me, 'On set, the word is that you are acting really well for Sindhu Bhairavi. You would win an award.' She was the first one to tell me that," Suhasini added.
While the actor did not let the praise get into her head at the time, it made her realise how important her film was at the time.
