Papa Didn’t Preach - Yet, his daughter has set standards for herself. An encounter with Aishwarya Rajnikanth

Cleopatra’s nose, it has been said, would have changed the course of history, had it been shorter. For Aishwarya too, it’s the nose that betrays her lineage.
Sharply sculpted, the nose leads you to a pair of laughing, shy eyes and a face that wears a perpetual wide smile. And surprise, surprise! This classical Bharatanatyam dancer has none of the nakras that you associate with kids of Superstars aspiring superstardom themselves.
“It is something that I have lived with all my life,” says Aishwarya Rajnikanth, talking of the surname she bears that shines like a beacon before her, everywhere she goes. So much so that she has grown up with a perpetual awareness of what One Who Bears The Name must be. So there can be no masala dosas at Woodlands or bhajjis on the beach. But Aishwarya is not discontented. “We’ve got everything we need brought to us,” she says, surprised that we should ask, “And yes, we do go to the beach, but only late at night.”
She’s proud of papa, who has not preached, but who has nevertheless been an idol to her, a symbol of all that she needs to achieve. She also deems as precious every moment of time that she is able to spend with him. “He’s not a person who’s got everything easily. I know what hardships he went through to reach where he is today,” she says softly, “But he doesn’t talk about it to me at all. He’s too simple a person to talk about it. We don’t ask him too, because the time we get with him is very little - we make the most of it.” Aishwarya’s dearest possession is a book, Living with the Himalayan Masters, gifted to her by her father.
Being Rajnikanth’s daughter does have its downsides too. “We have lived a very protected life,” she says of herself and sis Soundarya, “We have had somebody accompanying us wherever we went.”
“I have a lot of friends,” says this youngster who wants to complete her course in Corporate Law, learn more dancing and do serious theatre. Yes, films are an option, but no. She’ll not run around trees because that’s not what she really wants to do. She’d rather write a script or direct and do something more that would benefit others. Right now, she’s not sure what direction it would take.
Yet, her goal is clear. “Someday, people will know me as myself, not just as my father’s daughter. When people will know my father as `Aishwarya’s father’...” Papa would be pleased.