Did Trisha Break Vijay's Marriage?

'I may be known in the South but in Bollywood, no one knows me, not yet. I just wanted to be seen.'

Just days after Vijay's wife Sangeetha filed for divorce after 27 years of marriage, the Tamil actor made a public appearance with Trisha Krishnan. The couple attended the wedding reception of Kalpathi Suresh and Meenakshi Suresh's son.

The joint appearance certainly created a bigger impact than words.

Just who is Trisha Krishnan?

Trisha Krishnan is a successful actor down South, whose Hindi cinema career didn't take off.

Discussing her debut film Khatta Meetha in 2010, Trisha had told Subhash K Jha then, "I was nervous about doing my own lines in Hindi. I have done so many Telugu films but don't know the language at all. I know the grammar in Hindi but can barely manage to speak it.

"In Chennai, no one talks in Hindi. I was worried about my Hindi since my character in Khatta Meetha is from a fluent Hindi-speaking belt."

Trisha revealed she didn't dub her Hindi lines in Khatta Meetha.

"Priyadarshan (director) and I decided I wouldn't dub my own lines. It's not a problem, I know I'll soon master it. It's simpler than the South Indian languages," she had said then.

'I just wanted to be seen'

By the time Trisha came to Bollywood, she was a veteran of Tamil and Telugu films.

"I was so busy doing Tamil and Telugu films that I didn't get time to consider Hindi films although offers did come," she had said.

"I wanted to do something that would give me a wide audience. I chose Priyadarshan and Akshay Kumar. It can't get any more massy than that. Their combination always works."

Trisha was candid enough to admit she didn't have that much to do in Khatta Meetha. "It wasn't a heroine-centric role but I felt it would give me visibility. I may be known in the South but in Bollywood, no one knows me, not yet. I just wanted to be seen. When I started in the South, I did smaller parts with big heroes. That worked for me. One needs to be a part of hit films, especially at the start."

"Priyadarshan had launched me in the South, and he launched me in Hindi in Khatta Meetha. I want to establish myself in Hindi before I do more experimental roles. This is the trend I followed in the South as well."

Trisha's second Hindi film was meant to be a love story. Gautham Menon wanted to remake his Tamil film Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya in Hindi with Prateik Babbar (now Prateik Smita Patil) and Trisha. But it never got made, and that ended Trisha's tryst with Bollywood.

The trouble in Vijay's marriage

Vijay and Sangeetha got married in August 1999, and have two children, Jason Sanjay and Divya Shasha.

Rumours of their trouble marriage started a couple of years ago.

In her divorce petition, Sangeetha accused Vijay of having an extra-marital relationship with an actress and that he has subjected her to 'persistent mental cruelty, neglect and desertion'. If required, she said she would implead the actress as second respondent.

Photographs curated by Manisha Kotian/Rediff