Meenakshi Sheshadri's second life

For whatever it is worth, some people follow the lives of Bollywood's leading ladies well into their second, if not third, lives. Meenakshi used to be an old favorite of mine. The film that impressed me the most was Damini, but other than that, it was just the phenomenal charm of this talented Iyengar damsel from Jharkhand that etched solidly onto LTM. During my freshman year ragging at college, I made the mistake of mentioning her as a favorite, the one least forgettable. My aggressor leapt out at first, but just pulled back and quipped "bhen he, aur koi ?", and I rolled my eyes searching for names other than Madhuri. In that decade, she was pretty much the best looking, I thought. In an age where most actresses stereotypically marry billionaires, Madhuri married a rather upstart LA surgeon, about one twentieth or lesser in salary, and vanished from Bollywood. Since then, her #1 spot has remained vacant. I realized then, Meenakshi had executed a similar plan. She had picked a software engineer groom and settled in the US; IMHO a rather novel after life to a Bollywood career. In these days of desi opulence and cautioned NRI shy families, it is soothing to recollect what NRI grooms once meant to the Indian woman.