Mrs. Sujatha, Marriage, and Misunderstandings

I recently watched an interview featuring Mrs. Sujatha on the Aval Vikatan YouTube channel, and I couldn’t help but write this post in response.

In the video, she indirectly expresses regret about her relationship with the late writer Sujatha, implying that they lacked the kind of emotional bonding that today’s couples supposedly enjoy (?!). She also mentions that he would get angry at home, in contrast to his calm public persona. She suggests that they didn’t talk much—ironically, I vividly remember Sujatha’s own writing about the relationship between actress Shobha and Balu Mahendra, in which he quoted something his wife had said! Toward the end of the interview, she talks about the wealth and royalties he left behind, suggesting that material things don’t matter. (It’s ironic—men spend their entire lives working to build wealth and security for their wives and families.)

What struck me even more was the comment section. Most of the viewers seemed critical of writer Sujatha, echoing her sentiments without question. I found only one comment that suggested she might have misunderstood him.

This left me a bit shocked. Society often holds Brahmin women in high regard—considering them wise, grounded, and conservative. But perhaps that image doesn’t always align with reality. It seems to me that Tamil women, like all women, vary widely: some happily carry the weight of an entire household while married to alcoholic husbands, while others struggle to find peace even with loving, devoted partners. To me, this all points to one thing: the state of a person’s mental and emotional well-being plays a far bigger role in relationships than we often admit.

Though it might sound old-fashioned or even chauvinistic to some, the ancient proverb says: “A wise woman builds her home.”

I’m reminded of a conversation I had years ago when several of my friends were on the verge of getting married. During one discussion about an ideal bride, my friend Venkatesh said something that stuck with me: