After completing the degree, he went on to teach communication and public speaking at workshops around India. At the Maharashtra workshop, he encountered his wife Sarita Birje for the first time in 1991, when she attended his class on the recommendation of her cousins. Sarita was able to use the skills she had learned from Madhavan's classes to pass an interview to become an air hostess and after completing the course, the pair began dating. They married in 1999, before Madhavan entered mainstream films. The pair's marriage has been covered by the media, with Madhavan citing that advice from his mentor Mani Ratnam was useful. Sarita has worked as a costume designer in a few of Madhavan's films, most notably for "Guru En Aalu" (2009), when she worked along with Erum Ali, the wife of Madhavan's co-star, Abbas, for their respective husbands. Their son, Vedaant, was born in August 2005, which eventually led to relocating to the boat-club area in Chennai from Kilpauk, where Madhavan's parents lived with him as well as his parents-in-law. In 2009, he relocated to Kandivali, Mumbai, with his wife and son, as he pursued a career in Hindi films ahead of films in the South Indian industries.