KOCHI: The ravishing, smart lady surprised us with her openness and warmth. In an exclusive interview with expresso — the first one after her marriage to Shashi Tharoor — Sunanda Pushkar didn’t have the ‘mystery’ that has quite often been associated with her. There were no ‘don’t-ask-me-that’ requests. Her personal life, the IPL muck, her son, husband, family... Sunanda talked about it all despite being unwell. “I am okay now. Shashi gave me some medicine. I’ve got a caring
husband,” she says.
Sunanda is still amused while talking about her much-televised marriage with the MP and former Union Minister. “I didn’t know that our marriage was going live. When I called up a cousin in Kashmir who couldn’t come for the wedding, he told me that they had seen it live on TV!” Being in the limelight has been hard for her. “My father used to ask me why I didn’t join the film industry. We are from Kashmir and a lot of film shooting used to happen there. Camera-shy that I am, I was never interested. And now when my pictures are everywhere, my father asks, ‘How do you feel now?’” Sunanda bursts out laughing and says, “I can’t understand the media’s curiosity about our marriage.”
But it was the media that eventually made her marriage with Tharoor happen. “Contrary to the belief that we were seeing each other for a long time, it is because of the media that we got close and finally got married!”
So what exactly has Sunanda been doing all these years? “People have been saying that I used to be a beautician and that I run a spa and what not! I belong to Bomai, a small town in Kashmir. My dad is an army man. I have two younger brothers. My mother, Jaya, passed away quite unexpectedly five months ago.” Kashmir was going through a crisis when she was about to take up law after graduation at the Government College for Women, Srinagar. So the family had to sell everything and move out. Sunanda, who had gone through a painful first marriage, went to Dubai and later found a new life partner in Sujit Menon.
In Dubai, she started out in tourism, went into event management, did fashion shows (“some 14 shows with Hemant Trivedi and Aishwarya Rai before she became Miss World”) and fund-raising events and then ventured into advertising. Sujit died in an accident in Delhi in 1997 (“unlike a media report which said he had committed suicide”). “After he passed away, our son Shiv started having speech problems. Canada was the best option for me to help him get over that, which he eventually did in a few years. That was the time of IT boom and engineers from India were in demand. So I focused on that.”
But post 9/11, everything changed. She started human potential re-engineering and got an offer to work in the real estate sector in Dubai. She was chosen by Tecom to work on the International Media Production Free Zone (IMPZ).
Sunanda met Tharoor in 2008. “He was the chief guest at a function which we had organised. We became friends.” When the IPL buzz started, she grabbed the opportunity to put together sponsorships. “It was not something I haven’t done before. But cricket was new to me. Then came Lalit Modi’s tweet and everything changed.”
The talk about her sweat equity in the Kochi IPL and Tharoor’s closeness to her made headlines every day. Sunanda still stands by what she had said. “The much talked about ` 70 crore never existed! I was doing the IPL team a favour by helping them raise money.” The controversy shook Tharoor and Sunanda. “I was horrified about people making up stories. My friends forced me to come out and talk. That’s how I gave my first interview.” The result was that Sunanda and Tharoor found comfort in each other. “We had just returned after having lunch at a friend’s place and he said, ‘Let’s get married!’ He said that sweetly,” Sunanda says, blushing.
“I have been the boy of my family taking care of everything. And when Shashi came in to take care of me, he made me feel like a woman. And I fell for it.”
Malayalam is tough for her. “I am fond of cooking but I can’t make roganjosh or any non-veg dish for Shashi, a pure vegetarian. He has to have idlis every day for breakfast if he is in India.” Since marriage the couple has been travelling owing to Shashi’s official commitments. “It has been a roller-coaster ride travelling from one country to another. And people say we are on a honeymoon!” She is planning to work from Delhi besides supporting Tharoor’s charity foundation. It was when we were asking about their fights that Tharoor entered. “What kind of interview are you having?” he asked with a smile. “We haven’t had any fights. But we have differences of opinion when it comes to judging people. I can easily make out who is genuine and who is not, which he can’t very often.”
A doting mother, Sunanda is happy that Shiv and Tharoor get along well. “He calls Shashi ‘Daddy O’! I don’t know what ‘O’ stands for. My son and Shashi’s sons are close to each other. Our families are very comfortable with each other. We feel blessed. Touch wood!”
athira@expressbuzz.com