Bhai Dooj special: Radhika Madan says she and her ‘coolest’ brother Arjun are like Tom and Jerry

Actor Radhika Madan and her brother Arjun fight like a typical brother-sister, but while she calls him the ‘coolest’, he doesn’t want to change a single thing about her.

Actor Radhika Madan connects with us on call from Mumbai, while her elder brother joins in from Toronto for this Bhai Dooj special interview. And the banter that follows is absolutely fun! Madan starts off by telling us her fondest memories from the festival in the previous years.

Actor Radhika Madan’s brother Arjun is elder to her by four years.

“He has just moved back to Toronto this year. Raksha Bandhan and Bhai Dooj both come with a lot of nok-jhonk, with me asking for money and doing the teeka. That’s a ritual that has been happening since the time I remember I was really small,” she says, and adds that both of them fast until the ritual gets done with. However, she laughs as she reveals, “I wish I could say I wait till he is up, it’s usually him who waits. That’s a very sweet thing he does.”

TECH TO THE RESCUE

Arjun, who had completed his engineering course in Toronto, is now there with his wife, and planning to start some business. He admits missing being in India on such festivals. “The whole feeling of the entire family being together… ever since high school, it was very tough getting the family back together. We have found our ways of celebrating festivals,” he says.

Madan spills the beans on the virtual bhai dooj. “Video calls happen, but since we are in different time zones, I usually tie him a rakhi and do the teeka before he leaves for Toronto, two-three months earlier for past many years. I also mail him the rakhi and a card, and mithai, and he buys something for me,” tells us the 25-year-old.

COOL BIG BRO

Madan is all praise for Arjun, and calls him the coolest. “He never acted as a big brother from the very beginning, he was like the coolest, be it even the songs he would listen to. I always looked up to him in that sense. He would be updated about everything happening in the world. Whenever I had a crush in school, he was the first person to know about it! Even when I had my first relationship, he was the first one to know,” she gushes.

Arjun in turn says that the best thing about his sister is that she is very dedicated towards what she does. “And that translates into her performance, she works very hard on herself. I wouldn’t want to change anything at all about Radhika. She’s my little sister, and has the freedom to do whatever she wants. She can get away with anything, I love her a lot,” he quips.

REAL LIFE TOM AND JERRY

Madan says that both of them are really naughty, and keep teasing each other. “Agar main kuchh hoon, toh woh mujh se badh kar hai!,” she laughs.

And after any fight, no one apologises. “It just gets back to normal. We hardly have fought on any serious stuff, but if we have, whoever makes the mistake says sorry. Otherwise we get back to normal and come to eat together,” says the actor.

She calls herself the cartoon character Jerry and Arjun Tom, since these two characters are always fighting, to which he replies, “Yes, we love pulling each other’s leg, and bauhaut saare pange lete hain. That’s what a brother-sister relationship is all about, isn’t it?”

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