On January 7, Rajini Chandy, a 69-year-old actor in Malayalam cinema, posted photos of herself in tattered jeans, a white blouse and denim jacket. Her grey-black hair was pulled into a high ponytail. She wrote that it was part of a ‘makeover’ photography series by Athira Joy. The photos immediately invited plenty of comments, got shared and liked, and soon went viral. While many people appreciated her, there were some with nasty comments, criticising her choice of clothes and her age.
There were some really hurtful ageist comments asking her if she was not dead yet, and saying she brought shame to elderly women. The harassers were so bad that it invited worldwide attention. In days, Rajini Chandy got interviewed by everyone from NDTV to BBC. When TNM contacted her, Rajini said she didn’t want to do one more interview for personal reasons.
Rajini gained fame when she began acting at the age of 65. She played the lead in Jude Anthany Joseph’s 2016 film Oru Muthassi Gadha. Back then, when this reporter interviewed her, Rajini was a sprightly woman, doing her early morning workouts, nurturing her several interests from Mathematics to fitness, and unafraid to try new things in life. So when Jude Anthany asked her to play the grumpy Leelamma in Muthassi Gadha, Rajini was game for it.
Rajini often found herself criticised for these choices she made, for not being the conventional ‘granny’ in her appearance or manners. The negative comments soared when photographer Athira put out more stylish and glamorous pictures of Rajini, in long dresses, short skirts and flaunting her long grey and black hair.
In the BBC interview, Rajini said that she did the photoshoot to motivate elderly people to believe that they could still have fun in life. For her, this was also a new challenge she wanted to take up. She seemed calm in her interviews, and even reacted by posting younger pictures of herself in various modern clothes including in a swimsuit at a beach. Wearing such clothes was not new for her, she said.
Interestingly she’s the same age as Malayalam superstar Mammootty, whose recent photo of keeping himself fit, wearing a sleeveless T Shirt, had attracted truckloads of positive comments. On the contrary, when 18-year-old Anaswara Rajan posted pictures of herself in shorts, abusers appeared on the screen with moral policing comments. To show solidarity with Anaswara, many young woman actors posted pictures of themselves showing off ‘legs’.