Her bare feet sink into the sand, tracing footsteps that were taken several years past. They skim the memories of childhood, bringing back in a rush, warm summer afternoons playing in the sand, falling off trees and playing hookey with cousins. The sun is sinking low into the west, over treetops, over tall buildings, over the flight of a hundred birds flying home to roost. It’s a typical February evening in Chennai, and Padma Lakshmi is enjoying the feeling of being home, being her old self... just being.
“That,” she points to the well-grown tree shading the front yard of her grandparents’ apartment block, “Perhaps is the tree that epitomises my childhood.”
She may have set the ramps of Milan and New York afire modelling the creations of Ralph Lauren, Emmanuel Ungaro and Sonia Rykiel; given cuisine a new twist of fusion with her Easy Exotic cookbook, or grabbed tabloid headlines courtesy her high-profile relationship with Salman Rushdie, but the gorgeous Chennai lady is a Tamilian at heart.
“I am here in Chennai for at least a month every year,” she says, “I need to come here because my grandparents are here and they are more like parents to me.” But she’s also here to renew her link to her roots, to the city that moulded the initial years of her life.
It is the beach and the blue sea that form the link we are seeking. “I remember how clean and uncrowded it was,” she says as we walk the sands at Elliot’s Beach in Besant Nagar, “I used to pick shells here.” She does attract some attention as we walk down, from the courting couples, the regulars, the odd visitors - who pause to stare interestedly at the tall, languid and striking picture she makes in a muted yellow top and a multi-coloured striped long skirt. Padma may seem oblivious, but really, she does know she’s attracting attention, as she says later, “Sometimes I feel it’s happening to somebody else. I can’t believe it’s me.”
Which is one reason why her Chennai visits are so quiet and muted - they help her catch her breath and be a child again, pampered by indulgent grandparents, and as she says, “I can live like a child - not to worry about anything at all and enjoy each day for what it is.”
Soon we head back home, which is the third floor of an old fashioned apartment block. No lifts. Her long legs take two steps at a time and she suddenly turns to ask, “Shall we go up to the terrace?” We do, to a typically Chennai terrace tiled red, and streaked black with time. “You could once see the sea from here,” she says. No more, for all you can see is a skyline with the tops of apartment buildings, the water tank that serves as a landmark, a few temple gopurams. But the terrace makes Padma happy. It is familiar place, you can see, a favourite haunt to be revisited. And the memories pour out.
Of long happy days playing in the sand. Climbing trees, catching dragonflies, playing cricket. Breaking windows, snitching hibiscus flowers from a neighbourhood mami’s garden or taking a ride behind a cousin’s bike to enjoy soft ice creams on a cone at the old Aavin parlour in the Adyar triangle.
Chennai may be a long way from New York and Hollywood which form her base today, but the connection, remains. Padma has floated a film production company, Lakshmi Films, under which banner she hopes to make interesting, good cinema. “I want to make a film here in Chennai,” she says, as she talks about her search for a scriptwriter who would give life to a storyline she has evolved in her mind. “I would like to do a project here, maybe act. Then I would be able to come to Chennai more often.” Her forthcoming film is the much-expected Glitter starring Mariah Carey, which is due to be released in theatres in India soon.
But then, that is the celebrity picture. Before me I see a laughing face, long strands of hair flying wildly in the strong breeze, talking unselfconsciously about memories of being punished at school, St Michael’s, for getting into a scrape. “There was this teacher who would make me kneel when I was naughty,” she laughs.
We are interrupted by the shrill caws of crows roosting and Padma looks up at the wide branches of her favourite tree, relating an oft-told tale by her grandmother - of the cuckoo laying an egg in the crow’s nest.
The tree stretches its many tentacled arms as if to reach for the sky - its dense foliage protectively enfolds as the evening darkens. Padma says softly, “I want to be known for what I have achieved.”
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