Marry in haste and repent at leisure ; that is the moral of the ALVijay – Amala Paul love story; though filmi marriages are never known to last long, one did not expect Amala Paul’s marriage to crack up so fast. As an upcoming actress who had proved her histrionic abilities in movies like Deiva magal, Sindhu Samaveli and Mynah, Amala Paul should have waited before taking the big plunge; but having done that she should have brokered a commitment to stay close to where happiness lies.

Despite all talk of women empowerment, let us accept that at the end of the day it is a man’s world. Vijay will move on and marry a Chettiar girl chosen by his parents. Amala Paul will continue to act until the offers dry up and then move on to do mother and sister roles and eventually end up as a TV serial actress. If she is lucky, she might find someone else to marry.

The question is: why did Amala Paul marry in a hurry? If she is so career minded she should have eschewed the thought of marriage. One heard that she had made smart investments in real estate! So she was financially well off. Additionally the handsome and smart Vijay is from an affluent Chettiar family. If you love someone, can’t you sacrifice for that love? Someone might ask – why cannot Vijay do that? But to reiterate, it is a man’s world. Instead of playing the Devil’s advocate, it makes sense to see reason.

Today Amala Paul is receiving offers aplenty; but these will eventually dry up; she would have earned huge sums of money; but will this money give her the happiness that she would expect from life? Actresses like K R Vijaya and Sujata continued to work after marriage because they had little option – they had to support their husbands who did not have much of a professional career. Lakshmi’s case was different ; she was far too ambitious to remain domesticated.

Coming back to Amala, actress Sumithra had once remarked in an interview that actresses should never get married. This is the reason why Baby Chachu never married. She is not unhappy today! After an unsuccessful first marriage, Manorama chose to focus on her career. Saranya had a disastrous marriage with Rajsekar but she got Ponvannan as her husband later on and after her late 30’s, she made a name for herself  in Kollywood. It is another matter that she repeated the same dialog delivery in film after film until the audiences grew tired of her. Very few actresses have had a successful marriage and a film career – Bhanumathi, Saroja Devi, Padmini, Roja, Devayani and M N Rajam. CID Sakunthala never married. Until she migrated to US in the 90’s, actress Pramila was still single!

Amala should realise that sometimes one cannot get everything in life. There is still time and the couple can reconcile ably aided by their parents. Years ago Malayalam actress Sreeja fell in love with the handsome son of a minister in Tamil Nadu. They had acted together in a Tamil movie. Sreeja who was noted for her performances in “Thaiyalkaran” and “Cheran Pandiyan” lost no time in bidding good bye to films. Gopika and Karthika (who played heroine in Thindukkal Sarathi) are other examples of actresses who quit films when they were at their top. Jaya Bhaduri, a gold medalist at FTII, Pune chucked her career for her children. She has no regrets!

What is wrong if Amala decided to respect the wishes of her in-laws? She can always act in TV serials or play important career oriented roles in Tamil cinema at a later stage in her life. Or she can restrict herself to acting only in her husband’s movies.

Vijay seems to be a loving husband; Divorcing is easy; Staying together is tough. It is now for Amala to decide. History is replete with examples of ambitious actresses who gave up their marriage for their career and were never happy. On the contrary, Usha Nandini, Usha Rajender and Jaya Guhanathan made a smooth transition from being actresses to home makers. Are they not happy today? Why even  Jayamalini and Jyothi Meena lead respectable lives today though they had to portray the vamp in their movies! They chose to stop acting when they realised that marriage was more important. Manjula’s daughters chose domesticity instead of a blinding film career and are they not happy today?

Hope that Amala and Vijay do a re-think and decide to stay together!