The Ground Gave Way Beneath My Feet …
When Ms. Invincible Was Silenced
As I woke up on a lazy Sunday morning to a bunch of frantic beeps on my phone indicating a flurry of WhatsApp messages, I had no idea what tragic news was in store for me and our entire nation. In an instant and without a fuss, the universe had plucked away our supreme star, Sridevi! Just Like That, she was gone forever. Gutted. Numb. Stunned. I sat up in my bed shell shocked; there had to have been some mistake I thought! Just 24 hours prior there were images on Instagram of her attending a wedding looking smashing yet again, in a way that only she could. She looked super fit and belied all the 54 years that she was! And yet it was true.
As news channels and social media clamored to break the news showing archived clip after clip of her dances, interviews and public appearances, my heart went out to her family who might never get over this loss. If as fans we were this shocked, how would this impact her daughters and husband!
Sridevi was an indelible part of my life. My first memory of Sridevi is of her starring role in Mr. India. I was all of 13 years then, trying to find few superheroes who leave you awestruck. I remember being transfixed by the magic of her performance; how could someone make you cry, make you laugh, turn you on all within a span of three hours?! This rhetorical question came up repeatedly as I morphed into her biggest fan, absorbed by one film after another, from Mr. India to Sadma to Chaalbaaz to Chandni to Lamhe to Khuda Gawah to Gumrah to Mr. Bechara to Laadla to Army to Judaai to English Vinglish to Mom. I still remember when Khuda Gawah released, a friend and I, both Sridevi nutcases, bunked our lectures to see the first day first show, right up front in the stalls, away from one another only because adjacent seats were not available. Then we caught up in the interval to discuss how ecstatic we were. That scene when she loses her mental balance prior to the interval still makes my hair stand on end.
While most actors spend their entire career aiming for versatility and are grateful for a few hits — she owned her career and defined it, one knockout performance after another. Even in a bad movie, she was awesome. So invincible was she, it took the eventuality of death to stop her in her tracks!
As I grew older so did her stature as a powerful force in the movie making business, breaking the glass ceiling without even probably having heard of the term, let alone knowing what it meant. Her entry into Bollywood was not something she planned nor sought but she was clearly God’s Chosen One. Like many non-South Indians, I was blithely unaware of the fact she was as big a deal as Rajnikanth and Kamal Haasan and had worked in brilliantly made Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada movies, carving a unique space for herself alongside some pretty big male stalwarts. I doubt any actor of any generation of any gender has owned the box office in every language they worked in.
The adages grew with her popularity; from Thunder Thighs to Hawa Hawaai to Chandni to Roop Ki Rani to India’s first female superstar, she was everyone’s darling. Men desired her, women desired to be like her. It was not lost on the film fraternity that she could hold her own in a business that was [and is] sexist and ageist where female actors had [and have] a limited shelf life. Film makers wrote scripts with her in mind, producers were willing to pay her as much as her male co-stars, double roles were woven into the script to do justice to her star power, fellow actors jostled to share screen space with her while journalists were vying to get a peep into her life.
And while Sridevi had the entire country eating out of her acting hands, she wasn’t biting bait on revealing her personal side. Greta Garbo-esque and enigmatic to the point of being boring, stories of her keeping to herself with minimal contact on sets but transforming into a powerhouse performer at the sound of action are legendary and often compared with another recluse, Sanjeev Kumar. Every co-star swore by her talent, her dedication, her discipline and above all her humility. On being asked in a recent interview on her split personality, she was amused and lost for words to describe who she was; a shy and an introverted person that reveled in an extroverted art form. Little is known and will ever be known about her personal side except that she was a devoted homemaker, a protective mother and a very gifted painter. Journalists struggled to put together an exciting interview because they were too spoiled by the verbal diarrhea most actors dissipated with ease while she, at the other end, spoke so little.
Her enigma grew as she took a sabbatical to raise her kids and settle into well-deserved domestic bliss, having worked since she was all of four! As fans, we waited for news of her, her appearances in fashion shows fed our delight even if they were fleeting. 14 years later, when she had the audacity to return with English Vinglish, playing the lead yet again, at an age when female actors served their shelf life, we fans leapt in joy. And what a comeback it was — becoming not just a national but a global hit! A friend in the entertainment business was kind enough to give me passes to attend the premier of English Vinglish in Bombay. I remember, she was right in front of me, looking radiant and playing the perfect host, but I didn’t have the balls to go up to her and say anything let alone request a selfie. As a fan that memory will remain with me forever.
She loved the camera rather than the other way round, Sridevi said in an interview, but the camera adored her! And they spun such magic together! Those eyes spoke so much, she didn’t need to say much more and one didn’t need anyone else in the frame. Aptly summarizing this, her co-star from English Vinglish, Mehdi Nebbou says in the film, “her eyes are like two drops of coffee in a cloud of milk”. Those eyes will never light up to the sound of action again. As I reflect on her gargantuan repertoire, numerous movies, scenes and sequences stand out and there are far, far, far too many to list. They come flashing as the floodlights of my memory are unleashed. However, this one scene from English Vinglish keeps haunting me, as she displays a range of emotions, from excitement at ordering her first cup of coffee in a New York cafe to her crushing humiliation at failing to communicate in English
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyG2jtA_rd8
A total bhakt [devotee], I still remember my excitement in the months building up to the release of Mom last year, that now will be her swansong. The film though predictable, catches you by your throat and doesn’t let go till the end, for a singular reason, Sridevi’s gritty and titular performance. No wonder stars claimed her as their role model — Kareena grew up dancing to her songs, Kajol referred to her as an acting institution, she was Aamir’s biggest crush and Salman Khan called her bigger than the trio of Khans combined.
If ever there was a movie befitting to bring the curtains down, Mom is an apt choice. But it’s hard to believe the curtains are down and the light that shone so bright for five decades has now found a place above. Sri didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, and as fans neither did we.
