Director, dancer, goodwill advocate for the United Nations: Aishwaryaa Rajinikanth Dhanush, who is the daughter of a legendary actor or the wife of southern cinema’s biggest star, has come out with her first book which is a kind of a autobiography.Called ‘Standing on an Apple Box: The Story of a Girl Among the Stars’, the book boasts many things. Special or not, it would be eventually decided by the readers whose response will be the only judge. But the book definitely urges you to read it once with its impeccable story and out-of-the-league thought-process.

Growing up in Bangalore and then Madras, in a household that resolutely kept out any hint of her father’s superstardom, she was a quiet, introverted child whose greatest pleasure was a visit to Marina Beach and an occasional meal out. It was not cinema but law that became a preoccupation when she started thinking about college and career—but fate and her mother, had other plans for her.

Aishwaryaa writes with disarming honesty about life as Rajinikanth’s daughter, of falling in love and raising two boys with Dhanush, of fighting her own demons and finding satisfaction in a career of her choice. She reflects on the many roles a woman has to juggle at home and outside—in her case, under the watchful gaze of cameras and celebrity-watchers.Intensely personal, but also inspirational, Aishwaryaa’s memoir is an unusually frank insight into growing up in cinema-land. A playful meditation on the joys and difficulties of being a woman in this age, Standing on an Apple Box is as much a celebration of individual fulfilment as it is of family.

LiteraryYard simply believes that there is always a learning in memoirs written by the kins of famous people. Their lives always teach us how the people associated with the stars feel like, live like and think like. It is not easy.