A memoir
Standing on an Apple Box: The Story of a Girl Among the Stars was published by HarperCollins India in December 2016. It began as a private diary kept over several years.
02About
The girl among
the stars.
Aishwarya Rajinikanth is an Indian film director and playback singer working in Tamil cinema. She has directed three feature films and a documentary, recorded two playback songs, published a memoir, and served as UN Women’s Advocate for Gender Equality in India.
Born 1 January 1982 · Chennai, Tamil Nadu
01Beginnings
A house where cinema was the weather.
She was born in Madras — now Chennai — on 1 January 1982, the elder daughter of the actor Rajinikanth and the singer Latha Rangachari. Her younger sister, Soundarya Rajinikanth, also works in the Tamil film industry. Growing up inside one of Indian cinema’s best-known families meant the mechanics of filmmaking were never abstract: call sheets, dubbing theatres, location units and edit rooms were simply part of the household vocabulary.
It also meant a particular kind of scrutiny. Her 2016 memoir takes its title, Standing on an Apple Box, from the small wooden riser used on set to bring a performer up to frame — an image of both elevation and adjustment that she turned into a way of writing about growing up beside fame rather than inside it.
Proximity to cinema is not the same as an apprenticeship in it. The second had to be earned.
Her mother’s life in music and her father’s in performance framed two different creative disciplines at close range — and she would eventually work in both.
02Training
Rhythm first,
frames later.
Her earliest formal training was not in film but in classical dance. She learned Bharatanatyam under the dancer and teacher Meenakshi Chitharanjan, of the Kaladiksha school in Chennai.
The discipline stayed with her. In March 2017 she performed Bharatanatyam at the United Nations headquarters to mark International Women’s Day, and the Government of Tamil Nadu has recognised her with the Kalaimamani honour.
03Entry into Cinema
Three credits
before the first film.
Her professional debut came in 2003, singing “Natpae Natpae” for D. Imman’s soundtrack to Whistle, alongside Silambarasan.
Seven years later she worked on Selvaraghavan’s Aayirathil Oruvan (2010) in three capacities at once: as an assistant director, as a playback singer on “Un Mela Aasadhan” with Dhanush and Andrea Jeremiah, and as the dubbing voice for the actor Reema Sen. The song brought her a nomination at the Filmfare Awards South for Best Female Playback Singer.
That year on set — a long, technically demanding shoot — functioned as her film school.
04The Director
Four films, one
documentary, and a method.
Her feature debut, 3 (2012), followed a marriage undone by an untreated psychiatric illness. Made with Dhanush and Shruti Haasan, it introduced the composer Anirudh Ravichander — and carried “Why This Kolaveri Di”, which became one of the most-streamed Indian songs of its era.
Vai Raja Vai (2015) moved to a different register altogether: a crime thriller about a man whose premonitions draw him into high-stakes gambling, scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja.
Cinema Veeran (2017) turned the camera on the industry itself — a 51-minute documentary about the stunt artistes who take the falls and are almost never named. Rajinikanth provided the narration.
Lal Salaam (2024), scored by A. R. Rahman, used a village cricket rivalry to examine communal tension, and marked the first time her father appeared in a film she directed.
05Beyond the Set
Work that leaves the edit room.
Television & digital
She judged the third season of the dance competition Jodi Number One on STAR Vijay in 2008, and in July 2015 announced a YouTube channel, Ten Entertainment, for original short-form work.
UN Women
In August 2016 she was appointed UN Women’s Advocate for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in India.
06At a Glance
The record, in brief.
- Born1 January 1982, Madras (Chennai), Tamil Nadu, India
- ProfessionFilm director; playback singer
- IndustryTamil cinema
- Active2003 – present
- Also creditedAishwarya R. Dhanush
- FamilyDaughter of the actor Rajinikanth and the singer Latha Rangachari; sister of Soundarya Rajinikanth
- TrainingBharatanatyam, under Meenakshi Chitharanjan
- HonoursKalaimamani, Government of Tamil Nadu
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