The slew of claims of sexual assault and rape that have rocked the Malayalam film industry is now reverberating in Tamil Nadu as well. Malayalam actress Sowmya, whose real name is Sujata, has accused a Tamil film director of severe mental, physical, and sexual abuse including sticking a rod into her genitalia for “entertainment.” She described being “groomed as a sex slave” by the director whose identity she has chosen to withhold at this time in an interview with NDTV.
Sowmya stated that the film director, who had approached her with his wife when she was eighteen, had subjected her to mental anguish by referring to her as his “daughter” and expressing that he desired a child with her. She apparently shared the man’s name with the Kerala government’s special police unit, which is looking into other accusations of suspected sexual assault in the Kerala film industry popularly known as Mollywood.
“I was 18 and in my first year of college. I came from a very sheltered background and my parents knew nothing about movies. This opportunity (to act in a Tamil film) came through my college theater contact. As a child I was enamored by the actor Revathy, who lived near my house at that time. I was in a fantasy world. So I went for a screen test with this couple. I was a child, I didn’t know much,” Sowmya recounted.
She said that the director had told Sowmya’s father they had spent a lot of money on her screen test and implied that her family had been coerced into allowing her to act. Then followed Sowmya’s warning signs. “I said I wasn’t comfortable with the man. I said this at my first meeting,” however, she felt “obligated” to perform in the cinematic venture.
“During the first outdoor shoots he didn’t speak to me. The agreement was that his wife would be the director but that was on paper, in reality he was directing the whole movie and so I was under his control. He gave me the ‘angry silent treatment’ like a lot of men are used to doing and because of our conditioning in patriarchy about authority figures, particularly intimidating men who express anger very easily, I was very scared,” Sowmya narrated her distressing experience.
She then disclosed how she was “groomed” by the guy who pretended to be her father and whose own daughter had left after accusing him of sexual assault. Sowmya added, “But they told me she (the couple’s daughter) was lying. So they brought me into their home. I was a teenager who was rebellious at home and suddenly this couple was nice to me, bribing me with good food and milkshakes and telling me good things. That was the grooming process. He knew fully well what he was doing.”
The actress described the horrible events that unfolded later. “One fine day, when his wife wasn’t around, this man while calling me his daughter, kissed me. I completely froze. I was so desperate to tell my friends but couldn’t. I was ashamed, thinking I had done something wrong and that I was obligated to be nice to this man. So I continued going for practice, for dance rehearsals. Every day I went back and gradually, step by step, this man completely used my body to his advantage. At one point, he forced himself on me and he raped me. This went on for close to a year while I was in college”, Sowmya said.
Sowmya maintained that during this period, the man called her his “daughter” on several occasions and conveyed his desire to have a child with her. “He messed with my brain,” she said. In the 1990s, Sowmya starred in three successful Malayalam films. Speaking on the current sexual assault allegations in Mollywood after the Hema committee report was published, she mentioned, “A co-star who sexually abused me has now been named in the Hema Committee report. Directors, actors, and technicians abused me. There were also rights violations. One person spat on me.”
All this happened without her consent. “It took 30 years for me to heal and recover from this sense of shame. I encourage survivors to report all such abuse,” she said.
Accusations of sexual assault and rape, directed towards prominent Malayalam actors and filmmakers such as Ranjith, have been flooding in since the Justice Hema Committee report was made public last month. On 3rd September, Malayalam movie star Nivin Pauly, a film producer and four others, including a woman were booked after a female alleged in a complaint that she was repeatedly sexually abused at a hotel in Dubai last year after the former promised her a role in a film. However, Nivin Pauly dismissed the allegations. Gang-rape and other charges have been mentioned in the First Information report (FIR).
Several lawsuits have been filed against well-known actors, including Mukesh, an actor turned politician who is also an MLA from Communist Party of India (Marxist) party. The executive committee of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (AMMA) was also dissolved and all 17 members of the committee, including president and senior actor Mohanlal submitted their resignation as allegations of sexual abuse and misbehaviour were raised against its members and office-bearers.
