THERE WERE MANY SRIDEVIsWHO ENTERTAINED INDIAN AUDIENCES FOR DECADES, BUT THEN NONE THAT WAS THE REAL HER.
She blazed across the tinsel sky for decades and then as if in a moment she froze like a star in the open sky. Yes, she was the star and she will always remain a star in the galaxy of cinema. That twinkling star was our beloved Sridevi, a rare woman actor who shouldered a film with the male actor as prop. She blazed the screen from a young age and was gone just like a candle in the wind. The Hawa Hawai girl lit up the screen for 50 of her 54 years of life, rode many a storm as she ruled Bollywood for years with her magic on screen.
But that star remained an enigma, glittering from far and nobody able to get close. In fact, it is that very image, the mystery that every fan and follower was able to take back a different image of their favourite star back home. While she touched hearts with her little awkward girl-woman role in Sadma, there was the ethereal Chandni in white. And who can forget the Hawa Hawai girl with the crazy headgear fruit basket with the dance only a Sridevi could have pulled off. It’s one of the most iconic moments of Hindi cinema and it stays with you for years.
And then the rain dance in Chaalbaaz or the onscreen seduction of an invisible man in a wet blue sari in Mr India, the morni song of Lamhe and the sexually charged Afghan sport of Buzkashi with Amitabh Bachchan in Khuda Gawah, the list goes on and on, every performance memorable every performance a la Sridevi.
Then to suddenly disappear from it all at the height of her career to settle down and bring up a family for 15 years. Then to return to the screen once again to what the grapevine says to bail out her producer husband Boney Kapoor from financial difficulty. She returned in fact in the role of a subdued housewife who finds her own footing in her quiet self-effacing way. English Vinglish was to prove once again that Sridevi was not just a glamour actor but in the simple role of a bullied wife and mother, she held her place and made it her own.
And as folklore goes Sridevi was a shy silent girl who kept to herself on the sets and transformed once the lights and camera started to roll. She slipped into whatever role her directors wanted with ease and panache. And once, the lights were off, she returned to the shy Sridevi, inaccessible. Surely an enigma, by design.
There were many stories about Sridevi’s early years as a child actor, of the circumstances that forced her to put on the war paint and look older than her tender years. It could not have been pleasant. She belonged to a time when young girls were pushed into the industry by zealous, parents. Some survived. Many didn’t. Rekha and Sridevi were among those who aced the test – perhaps at a great personal cost.
Rekha like Sridevi came from the Madras industry under the Bombay arclights as a young starlet but Rekha was soon to polish her act, her looks, her diction which finally turned into a diva that even today Bollywood is in the thrall of. But Sridevi walked a different path. When she first came to Bollywood she was not even able to speak in her own voice. But it did not take long for Sridevi to master the art and evolve into Bollywood’s ultimate glamour girl and yet a fine actress. If Rekha fashioned herself as the ultimate courtesan with the right adas and looks, Sridevi became the star that people worshipped.
In fact, Rekha mentored Sridevi in her initial years in Bombay and even dubbed for her in some films. Even though Rekha and Sridevi were both is a sense part of the male fantasy, it was Sridevi who never looked cheap or vulgar even doing sexy numbers on screen. She was able to de-sexualise herself; even when she set the screen on fire with her blue chiffon saree in Mr India, she was not sexual but sensual.
At the same time, Sridevi managed to create her signature moves, giving her male audiences and the front-benchers enough to keep coming back. Even when she was in her fifties, dressed in cotton sarees and making laddoos in English Vinglish. But there was always pressure on that little girl who grew up to be the fantasy of cine-goers and the idol of millions. The grapevines were full of stories about how she just wanted to be a normal girl living a simple life, to be just a wife and mother to her two daughters. But she had to return to the screen after 15 years once again, just to support her husband’s doomed projects.
It was not roses for this little child star who grew up to reign the silver screen. Sridevi never really opened up about her childhood or her life, but just quietly doing what was asked of her. There were times when she was body-shamed and called thunder thighs in her initial years in Bollywood but Sridevi never took notice.
But of late her face, which expressed so many feelings seemed to be a little blank devoid of any emotion. She looked like who was simply doing something she had to and going through the motions. Just before the release of her film she looked like she was trying to keep calm in the middle of fighting some of her own battles.
Sridevi’s face – one of the most expressive ones in the film industry ever – was pallid. Her eyes, which could narrate an entire film in the fraction of a second, were lifeless. She rarely blinked and kept administering eye drops to herself between interviews. Her words came out with tremendous effort. She was almost inaudible, but her hair was perfectly blow-dried, the elaborate white dress perfectly ironed and laid out in a white fluff, giving her the appearance of a swan. She did not care for the compliments.
Sridevi was always known to come alive only when the lights came on and the cameras started to whirr. She never sought the limelight it would seem but the limelight definitely sought her. And once the lights went out, the star was back to being a woman with her own baggage and pain which she never shared with the world.
Sridevi was born in Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu as Shree Amma Yanger Ayyapan. She began her acting career at the age of four in the Tamil film industry and in her twenties moved to Bollywood in the mid-70s. She had already made her mark in Tamil and Telugu films and was to soon storm the Hindi film industry. It was Moodram Pirai in which she played a young girl suffering from retrograde amnesia she caught the industry’s eye and the film was such a big hit that later a Hindi version was made with her called Sadma. By the late 80s films such as Mr India, Chandni, Lamhe, Chalbaaz, Khuda Gawah had pushed her to superstardom, the first woman to get the title in Bollywood. There was simply no one like her.
In Chalbaaz, where Sridevi played a double role, she can be seen shifting between the two polar opposite characters, very convincingly. One where she becomes the goddess of power with some sort of Amazonian strength emanating from every gesture she makes, to the kind, childlike earnestness with which she addresses her old uncle. Her emotional and dramatic range was inspiring – astounding even. She was in her mid20s when she did Chalbaaz but her body of work and raw talent enabled her to be a star beyond anyone her age.
Her fans got another round of the star when she returned to mainstream films with the sensitive family comedy English Vinglish – a role she performed with grace and compassion. It was a different Sridevi, one wearing simple saris, hair in a braid and hardly any makeup and she aced it. Then she went on to make Mom a thriller with Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Adnan Siddiqi.
It reminds you of the time when growing up obsessed with movies and film stars, one was captivated by her big eyes and the big smile, her fantastic dances, her comic timing, the ease with which she transformed and slipped into her scene. She was one of the most powerful actors in Hindi cinema and surely one of the most memorable.
Her dances were why many flocked to the cinemas. Her portrayal in perhaps even the most absurd movies shone out like an odd ray of light in a very dark dungeon. Only Sridevi’s faultless dance and girlish charm could save horrible films from being pure torture.
And now the star of our youth was getting ready to watch her daughter Janhvi to make her debut in the industry with Dhadak under Karan Johar’s banner. The film is set to release in July this year but then it was not to be.
Sridevi’s sudden departure came as a shock to not only the film industry but to her millions of fans across the globe. Her death in Dubai’s Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel was sudden even as she was getting ready for dinner with her husband. But it was not to be. The curtain came down before the final call.