Standing On An Apple Box

Director dancer goodwill advocate for the United Nations: Aishwaryaa Rajinikanth Dhanush is so much more than the daughter of a legendary actor or the wife of southern cinema's biggest star. Growing up in Bangalore and then Madras in a household that resolutely kept out any hint of her father's superstardom she was a quiet introverted child whose greatest pleasure was a visit to Marina Beach and an occasional meal out. It was not cinema but law that became a preoccupation when she started thinking about college and career - but fate and her mother had other plans for her.

Aishwaryaa writes with disarming honesty about life as Rajinikanth's daughter of falling in love and raising two boys with Dhanush of fighting her own demons and finding satisfaction in a career of her choice. She reflects on the many roles a woman has to juggle at home and outside - in her case under the watchful gaze of cameras and celebrity-watchers.

Intensely personal but also inspirational Aishwaryaa's memoir is an unusually frank insight into growing up in cinema-land. A playful meditation on the joys and difficulties of being a woman in this age Standing on an Apple Box is as much a celebration of individual fulfilment as it is of family.