Book review: Standing on an Apple Box by Aishwaryaa Rajnikanth Dhanush

This is more a brief take than review.

STANDING ON AN APPLE BOX by AISHWARYAA RAJINIKANTH DHANUSH. HarperCollins India Publishers.

Things we learn from these winning essays by one who just happens to be the daughter of a Living Legend (come on, this calls for capitals!) and the wife of a shining star in the Tamil firmament:

• She is in actual fact, an introverted, retiring sort.
• She is not the most pet-friendly of persons but there have been a few dogs in that Poes Garden house, and the first one  answered to the name of Tiger Rajinikanth.
• She loves the craft of film-making and will willingly involve herself in all the nitty- gritty details. So she deconstructs several terms for the lay reader, the first and foremost one being the apple box in the title of the book.
• She has a charming direct-to-reader voice that has been captured well in this book, her first.
• She absolutely adores her father. Who, apparently, was more  hands-on a parent than one might have imagined.
• She was brought up in a rather restricted way but does not seem to look back in resentment.
• She spent nine years of her early life in Bangalore with her maternal grandparents and looks back on those years with much affection.
• She takes in admirable stride the adulation, the deification of her father.
• The dark  or less-than-radiant side of life in the shadow of an uber-star? She keeps it light. If occasionally a rueful note is sounded, it is cheerfully rueful to keep the balance.
• If she`s aware that she writes this book from a position of slight disadvantage, in that as many people will be ready to pounce on as to praise her work, it doesn`t seem to bother her overmuch.
• The family loves coffee and drinks it in  particularly different ways. The piece on coffee titled We Take It Black, is the piece de resistance of the collection, full of atmosphere, a love note to her beloved grandparents, an ode to the brew. Oh alright: Rajinikanth takes his coffee strong, piping hot, with just a hint of sugar. So now you know.
• She has a healthy respect bordering on huge admiration, of Dhanush`s  undisputed cinematic skills.
• Much of her courtship with Dhanush was conducted in his car driving around Madras/Chennai behind the anonymity of tinted windows.
• She once wore a lungi to the Louvre. It was her at father`s suggestion.
• She was given a rough time when apprenticing as an AD on the sets of her brother-in-law, noted director Selvaraghavan`s, film but does not look back with any rancour.
• Family and films are her defining passions. In that order.
• The foreword by Shweta Bachchan Nanda brings absolutely nothing of value to the book.