The Modern Goddess from Madurai
Sanya’s Malhotra’s Meenakshi is far from your usual small-town heroine. She is a woman of spark — someone who reads Chetan Bhagat and Murakami with the same curiosity, who wears her silk sarees like armor, and who is quietly unafraid to dream beyond the temple town. She is also unafraid to dream beyond the temple town. Most importantly, her deep roots and courage combined, allow her to remain true to her culture and individuality.
The name Meenakshi is an ode to the goddess of Madurai. Meenakshi is fierce, graceful, and commanding, just like the goddess. Director Vivek Soni has spoken of this quality of Meenakshi and the film’s title with great intention. The mythology surrounding goddess Meenakshi and Lord Sundareshwar is relied upon to form Meenakshi’s personality — their celestial union is a symbol of the perfect balance of strength and patience.
That duality of fire and calm and rebellion and restraint equally defined Sanya’s portrayal of the role. To prepare for her role as Meenakshi, she spent weeks learning about Tamil culture and customs, studying temple practices, and even the rhythm and melody of Madurai’s speech. Even though most of the film was shot in Hindi, she was conscious of the southern ‘feel’ and ‘rhythm’ to her acting. Sanya explained in an interview, “I didn’t want her to sound like a caricature or a city girl pretending to be desi. I wanted her to be Madurai.”
The character was not exoticized, as was all too common, for her cultural background. Instead, she was celebrated for her authenticity. One of the most touching scenes in the film occurs during a video interview for an executive position that Meenakshi is trying to secure. The camera slowly pans away to reveal her husband, hundreds of miles away in Bengaluru, trying to participate in a corporate training program. The contrast is subtle, yet, in the moment, it is heartbreaking. Meenakshi is ready to soar, and her husband is still learning to float.
Meenakshi may be the film’s light, but Sundareshwar is its shadow. He is understated, introverted, but carries a quiet depth. Portrayed by Abhimanyu, he is a man of a few words, reserved, and the sort that expects love to be practical and life to be predictable. An engineer, he views marriage as an equation to be solved. What makes Sundareshwar interesting is the tenderness that lies beneath the surface of his emotional rigidity.
For Abhimanyu, who previously created a sensation with Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota, this role was emotionally very restrained and thus a new challenge. He self-trained to literally and figuratively slow down and move with the emotional inertia of a small-town man, adjusting the pride and vulnerability that defines his character.
During rehearsals, Vivek Soni the director, asked Abhi gaanu to hang out with real IT interns in Bengaluru, shadowing their work and learning their pains. “I understood that these people are incredibly smart, yet very socially inept,” he later explained. “That became the foundation for Sundareshwar — a man who loves deeply but doesn’t know how to express it.”
Sundareshwar’s emotional arc is reflective of the internal, often unspoken shift that Sundar walks in men in India — the transition from duty-bound husbands to emotionally available ones. It is this absence of middle ground that makes his arc simple yet next to profound. The man obsessed with respect has his wife, finally, beyond the lens of tradition.
When Real Life Seeps into Fiction
Neither Sanya nor Abhimanu was with out their real selves in the film. For Sanya, who spent some time in Delhi before moving to Bombay to pursue acting, the memories of long-distance love and the solitude of ambition would resonate. In one interview, she stated, “I have been Meenakshi in my own way. You leave home with dreams, but your heart always stays with the people who supported you.”
For Abhimanyu, the film family context changed things, and with the pressure of being the son of actor Bhagyashree, Abhimanyu Sundareshwar’s inherited expectations with a unique perspective. “He’s constantly trying to live up to an image of what a husband should be, just like I used to feel pressure to live up to my mom’s legacy,” he stated. “In a way, both of us were trying to define ourselves on our own terms.”
Because of this personal relevance, the film had an intimacy that was palpable. The connection was simply domestic rather than bollywood style. Unspeakable messages, video calls, and your life all had a sense with the kind of ache that can only be lived in.
The Reaction Before and After
The announcement of Meenakshi Sundareshwar generated some intrigue but also a bit of skepticism. In a time dominated by thrillers and high-concept dramas, is it really possible to develop a romantic comedy on a long-distance marriage? However, the trailer was able to generate some positive buzz on social media. The trailer was able to charm the audience with its visuals of pastel houses, jasmine garlands, and the sound of temple bells against the backdrop of a laptop.