I was born in Delhi and came to Chennai when I was 3 years old, I studied in Children Garden School in Radhakrishnan Salai Mylapore . Since then, Chennai has been my home and has given me a great life, career, amazing set of friends who have helped me grow. Though I have a lot of relatives in Delhi and Mumbai, I always love to spend a lot of time with the people I earned in this city, such is the bonding.

During School days we used to plat a lot of gully cricket, I have played in a lot of grounds in the city. One thing I will not forget during school days is, on the weekends we used to walk all the way from RK Salai to Gandhi Mandapam in Marina in the morning and play cricket with friends. It will be a long walk but still we enjoyed doing it for the love of the game. I have played street cricket with Actor Jiva and Ramesh when I was a kid. It’s not so easy to play gully cricket in city grounds on weekends, we used to play in the gopalapuram ground on weekends where around 15-20 teams used to play at the same time, one needs to have a lot of focus to stay in the game you are playing such will be the crowd. At times you will be catching a ball hit by a batsman from another game or fielding in the middle of someone else’s pitch, but the fun you get playing this way is just Chanceyilla. It’s been sometimes I played gully cricket, in fact an year back the entire Chennai-28 team including me Venkat Prabhu, Shiva, Vaibhav went to play cricket in a ground in Adayar but fans mobbed us, I do miss playing gully cricket in Chennai these days.

For me Chennai and Cricket are inseparable, people here go to any extent to play the game, celebrate the game and the players. One such is CSK as a team and the way MS Dhoni is celebrated by the Chennai people. CSK is one of the most loved and celebrated franchise by the city it represents, I don’t feel any other franchise in IPL enjoys this kind of love and affection from its fans. Even when the team was banned for two years fans kept supporting them. Not just the fans even you can see the difference in intensity when Dhoni was playing for Pune and the way he played when CSK was back in 2018 and the team went on to win the title.

As my mom was a background dancer who has worked with all leading artists for over 500 movies, I had my natural inclination to dancing I learned different styles of dance like Jazz, bale, salsa. At the age of 19, I started my career as a background dancer. One of the unforgettable moments in my dancing career is performing with Super Star Rajinikanth in his movie Arunachalam the song was shot in AVM Studios, post that I performed as a background dancer with all leading actors in the industry from Kamal Haasan, Vijay, Ajith, Vikram and more. From being a background dancer to Super star to a Co-Actor to him in his movie Kaala, I feel that’s the biggest gift I can give to my mom.

When it comes to food, I just love the mixed rice that’s a part of south Indian cuisine, the puliyodharai, the lemon rice, I love the fish curry a lot . I am a great fan of street food in Chennai, and I would say Chennai has an amazing street food culture. Nair Mess in Triplicane, Moon Rakers in Mahabalipuram are my favourites. I have explored street food in the nook and corner of parry’s corner.

For me Chennai is the most peaceful city as compared to any other metros, the warmth of people and the way everyone is welcomed here irrespective of your origin is just unmatchable. The city has amazing connectivity that makes commuting within so comfortable and less chaos. The historic temples, the amazing coastline makes it even more special.   I owe a lot to the city for what I am today, friends like director Venkat Prabhu, Editor Praveen KL have been a true testimony of the famous saying “Vandhorai Vazha Vaikkum Chennai”. Chennai is home to me; I have settled here, and the city have given me a great life. From a school kid to a dancer and now an actor, I feel it’s been a great journey and the way the city and the people it gave me have shaped it is just Chanceyilla.

While there is everything positive about the city, I feel the current water scarcity in the city is scaring, I wish the city comes together for a green revolution like how it came to fight for Jallikattu that will make Chennai an even better place to live in for generations to come.