The more you share, the less burdened you'll feel: VJ Kalyani on her harrowing childhood

Popular Tamil VJ and actor Kalyani in a recent interview to a channel has shared her depressing experience as a child when she was molested by a music director. She said she was molested for six months at the age of 8 when she and her mother were on a dance tour.

Kalyani said, "He had won the trust of my mother. He was unsuspicious in her presence, but he behaved in a creepy way when I was sleeping. I was able to recognise a bad touch at that very age. I was embarrassed to talk about it because I was shy and I didn't know if people would trust me.

"8-year-olds of today are way better informed than those of our time," she noted.

Kalyani shot to fame with her antics in the Prabhu Deva-starrer Alli Thandha Vaanam (2001). However, she had a chequered childhood facing molestation and her mother's suicide.

She said that despite counselling she was still disturbed at reading about or seeing the composer, who according to her is popular in the Tamil industry now. Kalyani said while she goes back to her eight-year-old self, she talks about it to her husband and he comforts her. She says that the more you talk about your discomfort, the more the experience loses its power over you.

Kalyani has been in an on-off mode with her media career. The actor said that she came to TV instead of movies as she was averse to making compromises to attain fame.

Popular singer and proponent of the MeToo movement in the Tamil film industry Chinmayi voiced her support to Kalyani saying "Why am I not surprised by child sex offenders? She was apparently 8 when a music director harassed her." She also took a swipe saying "Penniyam pesum murpoakku tamilnaadu!" (A progressive Tamil Nadu that sermonises about Feminism).