When the stars were young

Today as actors they may be popular, but for their mothers, they will always remain children. As part of Children's Day City Express asked a few mothers about the early days of their children.

Upendra's mother Anasuya describes her son as being very active even when he was a child. "Initially he had an eye problem. He would rewrite letters on the same line. He used to wear spectacles, but when he got rid off them, his hand writing got better. In the midst of difficulties, my two kids studied very well. Upendra started his drama craze when he was studying in eighth standard at Bangalore High School. He used to write and stage dramas and street plays during Ganesha festivals. He was a member of the RSS group and always participated in various activities through Sanghas. Whenever he wrote stories and staged a play, he used to record them and show it to senior actor Kashinath. That's how his film journey started," said Anasuya reminiscing her son's childhood days.

“As a child, everybody is quite mischievous and even I loved to see the naughtiness in my children," she added. According to Pooja Gandhi's mother, Jyothi, she was a very naughty child. "She had the entire family from her grandmother to the aunts pampering her with chocolates. If she did not get something, she would cry and convince them. Since childhood, she was very much into dance and music and always wanted to wear different types of costumes. She never liked competition and always wanted to be a winner. She was the kind who said -'The queue begins where I stand.' She was very good in her studies. I was quite strict with her as I believed in thoda sa pyaar, thoda sa maar, which helped.”

Chandra Devaraj talks about her son Prajwal Devaraj, who is quite a disciplined actor today. She says, "I think I was blessed to have two sons, who never troubled me in their childhood. As a kid, he participated in dance shows and learnt dance from master Imran Sardariya. He was also very good with the keyboard. Though his father, Devaraj was an actor, we never knew that he wanted to get into films until his debut in Sixer. Only then did we realised that he wanted to pursue acting. My husband wanted him to be an engineer and always pressed upon him to take up science as a subject. In fact Prajwal wanted to run a hotel business and did business management too. But destiny took him to the cinema world.”