A bevy of beauties from Kerala

Audience: Tamil and Malayalam movie goers.

It looks as though every other heroine in today's next big hit Tamil movie is a girl from Kerala. Why not? They are talented, quick learners and are beautiful. The Tamil film heroine-industry seems to be run over by Asin, Nayanthara, Gopika, Meera Jasmine, Renuka Menon, Navya Nair, Priya Mani, and Sandhya to just name the top few. Some of them have been overbooked for almost two years. Asin, clearly is on a roll. She has been cast with the top heroes of Tamil cinema and currently three of these movies are among the top grossers in the state. Two of her movies were simultaneously released on Deepavali. Also on the festival day she was on every other TV channel for special programmes. People are lauding her performance in "Gajini". Already having had a successful run in Telugu with the top stars there (Venkatesh, Chiranjeevi and others), she is now making waves in the Tamil film industry.

I then decided to make a list of all the "mallu" artistes who made it big in the Tamil movie industry and I was quite surprised with the number of names I could come up with. Send in your entries and comments if I missed anyone or if I got someone wrong.

Pardon my inaccuracy, here is the list in reverse chronological order: (the movie(s) and other relevant info are mentioned in parantheses)

Abhirami (Virumandi), Shalini (Alaipayuthe, Kaadalukku Mariyadai), the late Shalini Kumar a.k.a Mayuri (Shock), Kavya Madhavan (Kasi, En Mana Vaanil), Kaveri (Kasi, Kannukul Nilavu), Geethu Mohandas (Nala Damayanthi, was also the child artiste in "BommakuttyAmmavukku"), Sindhu (Kadal Pookal), Divya Unni (Kannan Varuvan, Sabaash), Samyuktha Varma (Thenkasi Pattanam), Anju Aravind(Poove Unakkaga, Vaanathaipole), Charmila (Kizhake Varum Paattu), Sithara (Pudu Vasantham), Sabitha Anand (Chinna Poove Mella Pesu, Vaanathaipole), Lissy (Vikram, Manasukkul Mathappu), Shreeja (Cheran Pandian), Chithra (Cheran Pandian), Revathy, Shobana, Nadia Moidu, Radha, Ambika, Urvasi, Kalpana (Urvasi's sister, movies - Davani Kanavugal, Sathi Leelavathi), Shari (Meendum Liza), Karthika (Poovizhi Vasalile, Nayakan), Shanthi krishna (Panneer Pushpangal, Sivappu Malli), Menaka (Nettrikan), Jalaja (the movie that had the song "Nee varuvai enna naan ninaithen.."), Poornima Jayaram, Deepa (Meendum Kokila, Johnny), Rani Padmini (the yester-years' girl who was stabbed to death by her driver), Seema, Jayabarathy (Marupakkam, Michael Madana Kama Rajan), Sumithra, Pramila (Thanga Pathakam, Arangettram), Rani chandra (Bhadrakali), K.R. Vijaya, Padmini & Ragini (Shobana is related to them) and Sukumari.

I think I can also mention Shyamilee, Shalini's sister who did an adorable role in "Anjali" and later in "Kandukonden Kandukonden".

I am told that Meena is a Malayalee too but since I am not sure I'll wait for your comments. So also of Aiswarya (Lakshmi's daughter), Lakshmi and veteran actresses Sri Vidhya and Venniradai Nirmala. I am also told that other veterans of Malayalam cinema such as Sheela did also act in Tamil movies.

By the way I haven't included those from the TV Serials. One of them was also a child artiste in the movies "Mundanai Mudichu" and "Poovizhi Vasalile".