“I have always been a director’s actress and I blindly surrender to my directors”.

SRIDEVI tells JYOTHI VENKATESH

If Sridevi were alive today, she would have celebrated her 57th birthday today. At the young age of just 54, Sridevi left us all due to a cardiac arrest. Everyone knows that she was a legend, an icon and her void cannot be filled. Everyone knows what a switch on switch off actress Sridevi has always been but I am extra lucky in the sense that I could act, yes you read it right, I could act as Sridevi’s uncle in one of the episodes of the serial Miss Malini directed by Satish Kaushik, which marked Sridevi’s debut on Sahara TV. I was the first ever journalist to,interview Sridevi when she was acting in Tamil and Telugu films in the early 70's and also the first Bollywood journalist to interview her when she made her debut in Hindi films with Solwa Sawan.This article is my own tribute to Sridevi

Sridevi

 

When asked why she opted for being a part of the serial Malini Iyer, Sri quipped then, “Whether the screen is big or small, acting is acting. I opted to be away for eight years when I was carrying my child Jahnvi after I got married to Boneyji after my film Judaai was completed. As both my kids were grown up and can easily fend for themselves, they do not need a full time mother to look after them. Hence I decided to try my hand at acting in Malini Iyer, which boasts music by Himesh Reshammiya and was the first ever serial produced by my husband Boneyji . I had to do a lot of homework to prepare for the role of Malini Iyer in spite of the act that it is a tailor made role for me especially since I am a South Indian and could fit into the role with effortless ease. It has been my endeavor to get into the skin of the character that I set out to play”.

Perhaps not many are even aware of the fact that Sridevi had actually made her debut as a child artiste in Hindi films as the younger sister of Laxmi in Julie directed by K.S. Sethumadhavan back in 1975 when she was just 12 year old. Sri had started her career as a child artiste with the late Sandow M Chinnappa Devar’s Thunaivan (Tamil) when she was a five year old kid in 1968. She gained immense experience as an artiste by working with the likes of Sivaji Ganeshan, M.G.R etc who ruled the rostrum then as the monarchs of the trade. Her performance in the Malayalam film Poombatra won her the state award for the Best Child actor in 1971.

I have vivid fond memories of Sridevi who I had first met way back in 1975 when she was a child star, that too a precocious one at that, on the sets of Julie in Chennai’s Vijaya Vauhini Studios where I had gone to cover the shoot and Sri was frolicking around on the sets. Her mum had accosted me on the sets and pleaded with me to write about her daughter, who she wanted to take up acting in Hindi films when she grew up, though she did not know even a single word of Hindi at all. 

Sridevi did make her bow as a leading lady with Moondram Mudichu in Tamil at the age of just 14 with Rajnikant and Kamal Haasan as her leading men. The film directed by K Balachander shocked people since she played the stepmother to Rajnikant but it catapulted her to the top and soon she found herself cast as the leading lady in Solva Sawan in which Amol Palekar was her leading man. It was the remake of the Tamil hit 16 Vayathinile, which also starred Sridevi.

I remember I was back again face to face with a shy tongue tied Sri in her room at Hotel Natraj in Mumbai to interview her when she came to Mumbai for promoting her  debut film in Hindi- Solwa Sawan way back in 1979 . The film was an unmitigated failure, which prompted Sridevi to continue to work in Tamil and Telugu films instead of trying to sign on Hindi films. However, more than she herself, her doting mother did not give up her dreams of making her daughter a Bollywood star and she bounced back with vengeance four years later with Raghavendra Rao’s Himmatwala opposite Jeetendra.

The film proved to be a blockbuster and paved the way for Sridevi to consolidate her career in Hindi films. In fact, it was only Sri who could smartly work through her way in Hindi films virtually outstaging her other contemporaries from the South like Jaya Prada (who also entered Hindi films in 1980 with K. Vishwanath’s Sargam opposite Rishi Kapoor) and Radha, who fizzled out in no time soon after acting in just one film titled Kaamyaab that too opposite Jeetendra, like Sridevi and Jaya Prada.

It was however Balu Mahendra’s Sadma opposite Kamal Haasan that made the entire Hindi film industry sit up and take notice of the latent actress lurking inside the inferno called Sridevi. Sadma , which was the Hindi remake of the Tamil hit Moondram Pirai won for Sridevi a lot of awards for the best actress and she was deluged with a lot of meaty offers from Hindi filmmakers for films like Mr India, Chandni, Lamhe, Khuda Gawah, Nagina, Chaalbaaz etc which elevated Sri as an actress and catapulted her to the top echelons of stardom, though in a lot of her initial Hindi films, Sridevi did not dub her dialogues as she was not very proficient in the language. Yesteryear actor Naaz and Rekha were the ones who dubbed for a lot of Sridevi’s films.

It was while working in Mr India that Sridevi came closer to its producer Boney Kapoor. She worked for Boney in Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja and Judaai too before they decided to plunge into marriage after Judaai was released. Not many are aware that it was during the shooting of Insaan Jaag Utha that Sri had met Mithun Chakraborty who was then married to Yogeeta Bali and fallen in love with him and even married him secretly in Ooty. The marriage however lasted only three months because Sridevi left Mithun when she was shocked to know that after her marriage to Mithun, Yogeeta had even sired a kid to Mithun.

During her mother’s illness, Boney Kapoor drew closer to Sri and even offered to let Sri use his house till her mother was cured of her illness. In the process, Boney’s first wife and my old friend Mona, who is mother of his son Arjun Kapoor and daughter Anshula Kapoor, parted ways from Boney and Sridevi married Boney Kapoor when she was working in his film Judaai. Sridevi and Boney have two cute daughters- Jhanvi and Khushi. Jhanvi Kapoor made her debut in Bollywood with the remake of the Marathi hit Dhadak, produced by Karan Johar and directed by Shashank Khaitan.

In Bollywood, Sridevi has had the distinction of having acted with almost every top actor, except perhaps Aamir Khan. Like Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Raaj Kumar, Jeetendra, Rakesh Roshan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Rishi Kapoor, Sunny Deol, Vinod Khanna, Shatrughan Sinha etc.

 In 1993, Hollywood director Steven Spielberg was casting for his now iconic film Jurassic Park. Sridevi was at the peak of her film career then and was approached by Spielberg but she refused. She felt the character did not offer enough meat for her to perform, but in 2015, Sridevi chose to stage her comeback with English Vinglish because she was keen on being more than just being a housewife. “I did not turn down the offers to act in Darr from Yash Chopra  and my husband Boneyji to act in his film Shakti not because I did not like them but because I did not like the idea of balancing motherhood and work and preferred to be a full time mother to my daughters Jahnavi and Khushi. English Vinglish is a film which will always remain extremely close to my heart because I faced the camera for the big screen after a gap of 15 years after Judaai”.

Sri continued. “I am telling this not just because I  played the protagonist in the film because it touched my heart even as a woman who always has to fight to get her own identity in a man dominated society today, because not every woman is lucky enough to get the backing of her husband like Gauri has Balki who stood by her through thick and thin to make the film and I have my husband Boney Kapoor, who went out of the way to encourage me to stage my comeback as an actress after Judaai”, Sri exulted when I met her during the promotions of English Vinglish.

Sri was delighted when English Vinglish catapulted her to the top. “ English Vinglish clicked in a big way. Till date, whether in Tamil or Hindi, I did not receive this kind of a fabulous response for any performance of mine, because now the media explosion and exposure is bigger than earlier. The moment I read Gauri’s script, I loved it. I am glad that whether it is Karisma Kapoor or Kareena Kapoor or Madhuri Dixit, all of us actresses are getting an opportunity once again to prove our mettle on the screen. The industry is now better organized unlike earlier and there are a better lot of technicians now”.

Working in a film like English Winglish after Judaai was memorable by itself for Sri. “Frankly, I was not scared at all of facing the camera. On the contrary I was quite excited and confident. When I had made my debut with Solva Sawan, there was no excitement at all, but I was more excited when I faced the camera for English Vinglish and even after the release of the film, the excitement continued in some form or the other.  I have always been a director’s actress and I blindly surrender to my directors”.

Sri was always open for good meaty offers in South Indian films. “I cannot forget that if I am known as Sridevi internationally, it is only because of my body of work in Tamil and Telugu films which in turn fetched me Hindi films like Solva Sawan and Himmatwala. I am also happy that the Tamil version of English Vinglish also did well. I am game to do films in both Tamil and Telugu, besides Hindi, provided I get roles which suit me to the T, because you cannot expect me to run around trees like I did earlier”

When asked whether she wanted to try her hand at direction like Gauri Shinde, Sri quipped, “I am in the greatest phase of my life, personally as well as professionally. Why should I invite trouble by taking up the mantle of direction? Direction isn’t an easy job and hence I’d say that jisko joh karna hai woh use karna hai.”

Sri feels that it is unfair to accuse that thanks to cinema there is an increase in the atrocities on women. “Bad things have been happening from the days of Ramayana and Mahabharata and Cinema has nothing to do with it since it only reflects what happens in the society today. These kinds of incidents of rape make me shudder what is happening to our country and need to be condemned. We should raise awareness about making our country safer for women, if we want our future generations to feel safe in our country.”

When in her elements, Sri is known to be very witty and honestly sarcastic. When asked her take on Himmatwala remake, very coolly, as a matter of fact, she quipped, “All that I can say is that Himmatwala is not a Mughal- E Azam to be remade”.

After English Vinglish, she top lined the rape-revenge drama Mom. The actress then at the age of 54 played an author-backed role as the woman who goes after her teenage daughter’s killers. Sri proved all over again that she always was a genuine 24 karat star in films that often didn’t quite match her wattage.

According to Sridevi, Balu Mahendra’s Sadma, Shekhar Kapoor’s Mr India, Pankaj Parashar’s Chaalbaaz and Gauri’s English Vinglish and Ravi Udayar’s Mom are her best films in Hindi, while Balu Mahendra’s Moondram Pirai, Mahendran’s Johny, Bhagyaraj’s Moondru Mudichu, Rangarajan’s Meendum Kokila and K. Balachander’s Varumaiyin Niram Sigappu are her five favorite Tamil films.

Sri's death is also a lesson to several actresses in the world of glamour, because allegedly Sri used to take a lot of hydroxyl drugs trying to keep her weight down and kill the hunger, heighten the body's metabolic rate and make the heart beat faster. Though she was lucky enough to have died of a heart attack, there are others who are not so fortunate and live like a vegetable.

There can be no replacement for Sridevi. Her loss is yet to sink in my mind because I still feel that she is yet to come from Dubai where she had gone to attend the wedding of her nephew Mohit Marwah. Ironically, Boney Kapoor's first wife Mona Kapoor passed away even before their son Arjun Kapoor's maiden film Ishaqzaade was released and even before their daughter Jhanvi Kapoor's maiden venture Dhadak was released, Boney lost his second wife Sri too.