Singer Chinamyi Sripaada and her husband, actor and director Rahul Ravindran, made a surprise announcement on Tuesday, June 21, when they shared that they welcomed their first children. The twins, a girl and a boy, have been named Driptah and Sharvas. Sharing pictures of the babies holding their parents’ hands, Chinmayi wrote on Instagram, “Driptah and Sharvas, the new and forever centre of our universe.”
The news came as a surprise for fans, as the couple had not announced the pregnancy in public. “I’m absolutely loving these people who are DM-ing me asking if I had twins through a surrogate just because I didn’t post pictures of me being pregnant. Only those who were my innermost circle knew because I was protecting myself,” Chinmayi later shared in a note on Instagram. “I was and always will be extremely guarded about my personal life, my family, my friends’ circle,” she said, adding that she and her husband will not be posting pictures of the twins for a long time.
“And if you need to know I actually *sang* a bhajan during the caesarean as our twins entered the world. Get a grip of that. More on this later. But for now this is enough,” Chinmayi wrote on social media.
Sharing the same picture on Facebook, Chinmayi also wrote a note about society’s expectations on women to bear children. “Throughout my pregnancy I had a lot of people commenting right here on Facebook, many on Instagram and Twitter about me not having kids or not being woman enough etc etc. I understood first hand the pressure women go through and watched it silently. More on this later. But it has been a learning experience about people,” she wrote.
Chinmayi and Rahul got married to each other in Chennai in May 2014. Chinmayi has sung hundreds of songs for movies across film industries, including Bollywood films Guru and Chennai Express, Tamil films 96, Kannathil Muthamittal and Mariyan, Telugu films Most Eligible Bachelor, Majili and Manmadhudu 2, among others. Rahul Ravindran was seen in movies such as the Tamil and Telugu remakes of the Kannada film U Turn and the recently-released Nani and Sai Pallavi starrer Shyam Singha Roy.