Valentine’s Day | Secrets to make love last from old school romantics

Crime writer Rajesh Kumar and Dhanalakshmi

In the 1990s, when Rajesh Kumar was in the peak of his career churning out crime stories from his room in the first floor of his Coimbatore home, his wife Dhanalakshmi did the heavy lifting in the ground floor. She took care of their boys and ran the household, even proofreading his stories and keeping track of his deadlines. “He would write like a machine,” recalls the 71-year-old. “He wouldn’t even have time to read his stories after he wrote them,” she adds.

Today, in the quiet of their home in the outskirts of Coimbatore, the couple reminisce their love story, one that started with a traditional bride-seeing custom, 51 years ago. “I instantly knew that she was the one,” recalls the 78-year-old author, adding that he noticed how beautiful her eyes were then, even though they didn’t get to talk during the meeting of the two families. “I’ve always admired her eyes,” he says with a smile.

Rajesh Kumar constantly travelled across the country as part of his father’s textile business in his younger years. “My parents lived with us, so there was always support at home for her and our children,” he says. He would write short letters to her during those trips. “I would tell her I was doing well, and would ask about her and the children,” he says.

Writer Rajesh Kumar and his wife Dhanalakshmi on their wedding day on 17-02-1975.
| Photo Credit:
Special arrangement

When Rajesh Kumar started writing, Dhanalakshmi was his first reader and critic. She still is. “I regularly get feedback that my women characters are dignified. This is because of my wife’s influence,” he says. When he was writing crime series for six to seven publications a month, she maintained a diary with synopses of each series. “I would note down how he ended a particular week’s portion, the name of the lead characters and so on so that there would be no mix up with continuity,” says Dhanalakshmi.

He would often be cooped up in his room, writing, without talking much to her or their children. “We would hardly get time to go out together,” she recalls. But she knew how badly he wanted to succeed, and ensured he wasn’t bogged down by worldly demands. The crime author would get mobbed by fans wherever he went back then. “I would end up standing somewhere nearby, alone,” she chuckles. “It was best that we didn’t step outside.” They did have fun in their own way. “The two of us would go to the cinema at night in my Kinetic Honda,” he says. Night shows meant that they could enjoy the movie and each other’s company without his readers recognising him.

Today, Rajesh Kumar has entered the OTT space and the movie people often visit him for discussions. While he is embracing fame and everything that comes with it, he is deliberately taking it slow for his wife. “I cannot keep travelling to Chennai. I have to be here for her,” he often says.

Dhanalakshmi cannot stand being at home without his company. “I would head to the bank for something and she would call me in 20 minutes, asking me when I will be home,” he says. The other day, she gave him a list for grocery shopping and just as he was about to leave, said that she too wanted to come along. This is what 51 years of companionship does to you.

Tamil scholar and actor G Gnanasambandan and Amutha Sambandan

Madurai-based Tamil scholar, orator, and actor G Gnanasambandan has named his KK Nagar home ‘Amuthagam’, meaning ‘Amutha’s place’. Over the 42 years of their marriage, during which he steadily grew in popularity, writing books, acting in movies and travelling the world for talks and pattimandrams, Amutha has been by his side with her quiet strength.

“I didn’t even have a job then, but she agreed to marry me,” says the 71-year-old Gnanasambandan. He sometimes wonders why Amutha said yes to him. He was in his late 20s and yet to find his feet in Tamil literature when the two got married. She was 19 and went by her gut instinct and the trust she placed in her parents — theirs was an arranged marriage.

Tamil scholar and actor G Gnanasambandan and his wife Amutha Sambandan in Madurai.
| Photo Credit:
ASHOK R

Two children and four grandchildren later, he still remembers the day he first saw her. “I’d gone to her home in Dindigul in a horse-drawn cart with my father,” he recalls. Amutha was washing clothes in front of her home and rushed inside when she spotted her husband-to-be. For their wedding ceremony a few months later, Gnanasambandan had organised a photographer. “But he had just one film roll with him and ended up shooting my relatives in colour and hers in black-and-white,” he laughs. It was the photographer who initiated their first conversation.

“She asked me if I can get him to take photos of her and her parents,” he says. Amutha and Gnanasambandan have fond memories of picnics by the Vaigai with their children followed by a dip in the river. When he started working in the Thiagarajar College in Madurai, he would return home to Sholavandan by bus at around 9pm every day, to see his kids waiting for him by the front steps. “We would have dinner together as songs from the Mouna Ragam cassette played in the background,” he says.

G Gnanasambandan and his wife Amutha Sambandan on their wedding day
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Special arrangement

Once their children were a little older, Amutha got the opportunity to pursue her higher education. “I did my MA, BEd and MPhil,” she recalls adding that she too was drawn to Tamil. When Gnanasambandan started getting roles in Tamil films, Amutha would accompany him to film sets whenever she got the chance, and the two of them have travelled abroad together for several overseas events.

Gnanasambandan particularly remembers shooting for Bigil with actors Nayanthara and Vijay, in which he played her father. He had opted out of a talk in the US to be part of the movie and recalls actor Vijay joking to his wife during the shoot that he chose to act in a film with Nayanthara instead of offering a Tamil speech.

Gnanasambandan says that life does not always offer a rosy park for couples to take strolls and romance at. “There is a lot happening. We argue, then make up; one of the kids will have to be rushed to the emergency due to a sudden fall or sickness; we suffer health issues as we age…” he says, adding that in between all of that, love happens.

Air Commodore SK Jayarajan and Stella Jayarajan

SK Jayarajan with Stella on their wedding day
| Photo Credit:
JOTHI RAMALINGAM B

A sprightly Stella Jayarajan, 74, finds her way to the church of St Mary’s, Fort St George, with practised ease. Not surprising for someone who spent 37 years of her professional life working at the nearby multi-storey Namakkal Kavignar Maligai that houses the State Secretariat.

Air Commodore SK Jayarajan AVSM, VSM (retired), 80, Stella’s husband of 50 years, points to the arbor where they used to lunch on the rare occasions he dropped in at the fort. “Whenever I came down on leave, I dropped by to surprise her at work and we ended up having a quick ‘picnic’ lunch across the road under the trees,” says Jayarajan. Impromptu lunches have been their love language, even in the years when the vagaries of service kept them apart with each pursuing their own professional arc. Unusual for a couple who met as strangers and decided to wing it. 

Jayarajan, who was commissioned in the Indian Air Force in 1968, was introduced to Stella, an Assistant Section Officer, Department of Housing, on a visit home. Each remembers what the other was wearing — she, a yellow cutwork sari that still hangs in her wardrobe, he, a pair of checked double barrel pants. “Fits like a shot,” they say and laugh in unison referring to the ad line for the trousers. The meeting lasted a few minutes; the next time they met was at the altar. 

“I wasn’t keen on being a Forces’ wife,” says Stella. “I was painfully shy; not cut out for the social evenings and dinner nights. Also, the idea of leaving my job didn’t appeal to me. But I trusted that God knows best.” 

Air Commodore SK Jayarajan (retired) with Stella Jayarajan at St Mary’s Church, Fort St George, Chennai
| Photo Credit:
JOTHI RAMALINGAM B

With Jayarajan’s encouragement, Stella managed to walk the tightrope — staying back to work in Madras, where she had the support of her family, availing transfers where she could, and following the drum to wherever Jayarajan was posted. Across India — Delhi, Wellington, Allahabad, Faridabad, Bangalore, Jorhat, Nagpur and Chennai — Stella stepped in to fulfil her duties as a military wife whenever she could, a mother of two, and a working woman.

But it was Shillong that first stole her heart and cemented their marriage. “We moved there after our wedding, and in that period of leave I enrolled to do another degree at the university. His office hours were till 2pm. After classes I would reach the foot of the hill and wave out with my umbrella, and if he could see me from his office window he would quickly come and bear me away in his Vespa scooter for lunch. And it was in the languid afternoons, walking through the woods, collecting pine cones and driftwood [that now dots their home] that we discovered our likes, dislikes and interests. Home chores were shared — being the only South Indians, there was much batter to be ground to meet the demands of bachelor officers with a fondness for idli-dosa-vada. Some evenings were spent wrapping the vessel of batter in a blanket and placing it in front of the fireplace for it to ferment. Dusk came early in the East and we used to come back to hot tea and snacks that I had laid out on the table, and ABBA and Rafi on the two-in-one,” says Stella.

Later, Jayarajan went on to be among Loyola Institute of Business Administration’s first management graduates. “But there was always, always time for a picnic lunch on the weekends,” adds Jayarajan, who retired as the Air-Officer-Commanding, Air Force Station, Devlali. 

Stella admits that the breaks on and off from work resulted in the occasional professional upheaval in terms of benefits but says she would not have had it any other way. “It taught me to slip in and out of roles easily — I could take the bus to work like any working woman and also slip into the role of the unit’s first lady with ease. It taught me gratitude.”

Both agree that they are surprised that the decades have gone by pleasantly well. “I think there were no surprises because we had no expectations. We’ve had good bosses, great friends and family and some crazy adventures. We travel and meet people at least once a week,” says Jayarajan.

Stella, who retired as Additional Secretary to Government, says with a laugh, “We both have a list of qualities that annoys the other. But nothing that big that a picnic lunch can’t fix.”