I met Sridevi. I met the great Sridevi

This day, that year... 
 

Death of an Indian Icon: A nation mourns the loss of Bollywood legend Sridevi

On this day, in the year 2018, legendary actress, star of a whopping 266 Indian films,  Sridevi died in Dubai, a case of fatal "accidental drowning," that sent seismic shockwaves through fans of Bollywood and Indian cinema.

A life-long fan, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing the actress for a cover story for Post magazine back in 2012. 

You can read the entire feature in the archives at SCMP.com here. 

TBT: Sridevi

The death of Indian actress Sridevi will be an enduring mystery as something as pedestrian as "accidental drowning" took away a cine-Goddess at the young age of 54*. Legions of her fans still cannot fathom it and several conspiracies (each more mad than the other) float online. * Perhaps only in tandem with death can 54 seem so painfully  young....

Anyhoo, was on a press trip for the magazine back in 2012 when I saw 'the' Sridevi strut confidently into the lobby of a hotel and I spoke to the PRs and said, this street will burn to the ground if you don't introduce me to that legendary movie star. 

They lol'd. I've been told that I'm about as threatening as a bag of kittens. 

We were introduced. I babbled on incoherently while staring into the luminescent one... 

In two sittings, I got the feature out - pitched it to the editor of Post magazine. Voila. A cover story was born.

BTW As she was leaving, I asked Sridevi to pls do more films and if we could do a memoir or biography of sorts - this was back in the day (an earlier request back in 2005 was also waved off) when she was hesitant to return to the limelight.  

She responded, "A book on me? Why? I'm just an ordinary housewife now..."

"NO!", I interrupted. "You're a Goddess. You just don't know you're a Goddess!"

She laughed and patted my head (she's a foot taller than me). And walked away, with her bodyguard and assistant in tow. 

RIP Sridevi. RIP My Queen.

A Star is Reborn: Sridevi

Fifteen years after she stepped out of the spotlight to focus on her family, Indian film star Sridevi returns with a new movie. P.Ramakrishnan meets the Bollywood legend.

Queen, housewife, journalist, nurse, mystical snake-woman, princess, bandit, goddess, secretary, mad woman, fallen angel, police officer, drug addict, wannabe pop star, dancer, singer, embittered first wife, chief executive, Afghan tribal leader,  falsely implicated drug smuggler and streetwalker – Sridevi has been them all.

Star of  more than 200 Indian films (in five languages) and a member of the haloed pantheon of Bollywood celebrities, Sridevi is a larger-than-life figure.  She had done it all on-screen by the age of 34. With beguiling, sari-clad ease, she’d sung and danced, grieved and raged and cried and laughed on the big screen. As a child star – she won her first award before she was a teen – to a leading lady and screen icon, her cinematic journey was marked with box-office triumph, record-making paychecks and trophies galore.

Then she took a break – for 15 years.

WITH  A TEAR ROLLING down her cheek and a quivering smile, Sridevi faced a 10-minute standing ovation after the premiere of  her comeback film,  English Vinglish, at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 14. At the event, her glistening  Sabyasachi  Mukherjee sari ranked her alongside  best-dressed celebrities Zac Efron, Penelope Cruz and Monica Bellucci – and that was before she brought her most potent weapons to bear.

Sridevi at the Toronto International Film Festival. Sept 14, 2012

“Those eyes – when she looks at you, you sort of get lost,” says writer and director  Gauri Shinde, who yanked Sridevi out of her self-imposed retirement. “As a woman, I  [was affected], I can’t imagine what it does to men.

“Meeting Sridevi the first time was surreal. Is this true? Is this happening? I felt like I was in the middle of  Requiem for a Dream, not sure what was real and unreal. I sat there and just watched her.  And she looks like a diva-movie star in her natural state. She was at home in blue jeans and a shirt. She had no make-up on, her youngest daughter was running around. She has this lovely, luminous skin and the most gorgeous, heart-breaking eyes…”

Heart-breaking indeed.  Oscar nominee and  Midnight’s Children director Deepa Mehta, who ran into Sridevi at the  festival where both their films were being screened the same week, tweeted: “There is something very poignant, heart-breaking about a megastar making a comeback after eons.”

Shinde flinches at the word “comeback”: “Oh that expression means nothing to me. The movie was never a vehicle to bring anyone back. My husband [producer/director  R. Balki] was in conversation with Sridevi’s husband,  Boney Kapoor, and casually mentioned that I was working on my first film. Sridevi overheard and was intrigued by the story. She asked to meet me.”

With a background in  advertising, Shinde wrote and directed a slew of  minute-long ads in Mumbai before she took a break and flew to New York to study film.  Her first short,  Oh Man! (2001), was screened at the  Berlin International Film Festival. Her latest script, written in 2008, was penned  without a specific actor in mind.

“My first full-length feature film, with the most famous Indian actress alive – who thinks like that?” laughs Shinde, pulling back copious curls. “I’m certainly not that optimistic. I feel everything fell into place by some miracle, from my DOP [director of photography], music director, crew and cast – that includes  Mehdi Nebbou [seen in  Steven  Spielberg’s Munich and  Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies], I can’t imagine this movie without them. The script   I had written, shooting that in cinematic New York, in Pune, where I grew up, in Mumbai, where I work, it was all a waking dream come true.”

“The script made me want to do the film, and, of course, Gauri,” says Sridevi,  when I grab a few minutes with her at the  JW Marriott hotel in Mumbai. She has just finished a workout and  stands before me in a tracksuit. Her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, her unmade-up skin showing few signs of her  49 years. She’s soft-spoken, notably shy, yet easy to smile.  And when she looks at me, I know immediately what Shinde was talking about when she mentioned those eyes …

I zone back in and ask about the reasons behind the 15-year break.

“When I had my daughters, I didn’t want to miss out on anything, so I took a break,” says Sridevi.  “I didn’t want to miss their first words, their first walk, by being on a set while the nannies took care of them. Because of my children, I didn’t miss the industry, not even a little bit.

“But I didn’t think I’d be away for so long. When Gauri gave me the script to read, I loved it. I could relate to it – so I did it. Had she come to me four or five years ago, I would have said yes then, too.”

Born to  Ayyappan and Rajeshwari in  Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu,  Sridevi was first cast in a Tamil film  at the age of four. One film led to another and  her  career as a formidable child artiste grew as she appeared in a spate of South Indian films. National recognition came a little later. Solva Saawan  (Sweet Sixteen; 1979),  her first  Hindi film, tanked  at the box office and Sridevi was happy to never do a  Bollywood  movie again. She’s often said she hated doing the film as she didn’t understand Hindi.  Years later, she gave Bollywood another try. With her voice dubbed by another artist (she learned Hindi years later), she exploded into the national consciousness in  Himmatwala (The Brave One, 1983).

So much has changed in the  15 years  she has been away from an industry that centres on the young, the new and  the endless parade of beauty queens and models with limited acting skills.  In her second act, will the audience find Sridevi as appealing as they did when  temples were created in her name? The premise of  English Vinglish is unlike any  of those that are garnering millions at the box office in India, or  elsewhere, where action-packed flicks and inane, slapstick comedies have been  filling cash registers.

And then, there’s the age factor.  As  Meryl Streep famously said in Vogue after having been offered three parts as a witch: “Once women passed childbearing age … they could only be seen as grotesque on some level.”

When Sridevi left the industry she was pregnant with her first child   and had seen the song and dance numbers peter out. She had been nominated for best actress at the Filmfare Awards – the Indian equivalent of the Oscars – consecutively for five years  and the critically acclaimed film  Lamhe (Moments, 1991) had garnered her nearly every major award, although the box office had not been kind.

If Shinde’s anxious about  ticket sales, though, she shows no sign of it.

“It’s been a blessing that I’ve not had a moment to think about opening weekend box-office figures,” Shinde says. “There’s always a modus operandi in the media to work a phrase into a film: it’s a ‘women’s picture’ – which it isn’t; I’m no feminist, neither is my film – it’s not a ‘comeback film’ – which is such an easy slot to pigeonhole this into – and I certainly don’t think about whether the movie will make a 100 million. I honestly haven’t thought about it as we’ve been working day and night to meet deadlines, firstly to send the final cut to Canada for the film festival, then simultaneously, as the movie is being made in regional languages, we’ve had launches and premieres in different states in India, so all that has to be overseen.

“Thankfully, my husband is Tamilian, he’s been going over all the details for the [southern] states in India.  We’ve not forgotten that Sridevi is one of the last pan-Indian stars. She’s a familiar face everywhere by the sheer volume of films she’s done.”

In English Vinglish, a linguistically challenged housewife,  Shashi (Sridevi), is  married to an educated patriarch  (stage actor Adil Hussain), who is condescending about his wife’s English. A family wedding takes Shashi to New York, where she’s traumatised by the overwhelming city and its foreign cacophony. Encouraged by her niece, she takes up English tuition, joining a class of immigrants.

Having been the leading lady in five regional languages, Sridevi  says, “I’ve always had a problem with language – so when I did this film, I could relate to it instantly. I’m not fluent in any [she says with a laugh].

“My directors used to call me a parrot,” she said in an interview with CNN. “I’d retain the dialogue, emote what was necessary, but I didn’t know what I was saying in the beginning when I did films in Kannada, Malayalam and even in Hindi in the 1980s. Now I’m better but …”

A comedy of errors and miscommunication aside, the film is a gentle probe into class structure, alienation, fear and embarrassment brought on by a world that speaks a common language – but where the lead protagonist doesn’t.

“My mother’s the inspiration and starting point for the film,” Shinde says. “She’s a businesswoman and always felt had she been fluent or at ease with English, she would have prospered much more.  She thinks the film’s about her – but it really isn’t. There’s no Frenchman in her life who comes  and whisks her around New York. She’s happily staying put in Pune.”

How did the Frenchman, played by Nebbou, who is used to working in understated American and European films, feel about his love interest?

“He, like most of our cast, was in awe of our leading lady – my husband calls her the ‘hero’ of the film,”  Shinde says. “Sridevi has this awesome way of being completely true to her character on-screen and then she just switches back to being herself when the scene’s done.   She’s very shy and  keeps to herself, mostly. Well, she did originally and most of the crew – many of us who grew up watching her – were in awe of her. But she made the effort to put her co-stars at ease.”

As the late  photographer  Gautam Rajadhyaksha, who had known Sridevi from her first few Hindi films,  once said: “There are two Sridevis. Two people as different from each other as you can imagine, leading quite separate lives, who never seem to meet even though they inhabit the same body. I first met the off-screen Sridevi. She’s shy, unsure, awkward, an almost simple-looking girl who  talks in barely audible murmurs. Then, there is the screen Sridevi, who appears as if by magic the minute you switch on the  arc lights. She’s a sensuous seductress capable of unblocking your abused arteries with one look from her smouldering eyes.

“No matter how she saps my energy and spontaneity with her obsession for perfection, the Adrenalin spurts back the moment she turns to face the camera.”

At the Toronto  festival, co-star  Adil Hussain said: “Having worked on stage for years, I’m not in awe of stars. When I heard I had to work with her, I thought, ‘Good, she’s a good actor.’ But the one time I was nervous,  was during a scene near the end of the film  when I had to dance with her.” Hussain   covers his eyes with his hands. “Dance with the Sridevi. That day I was full of doubt.”

Says Shinde: “She  doesn’t live in the past, there are no affectations, she’s supremely  … normal. She’s just so calm and collected.”

The film itself has a patina that’s more Westernised than the glitz and glam of  the average Hindi movie. The director’s proclivity for independent films as opposed to mainstream, song-and-dance flicks, is visible  in the trailer.

“I think my film is not ‘filmy’ … Despite having such a glamorous mainstream actress, I didn’t want to fall into that trap. We kept it   suited to her character, there’s no big ‘item’ song number, and this is despite the many people who told us that you can’t have a film with a dancing diva and not make her dance. But I listened to no one. You’ve got to have conviction in your own story, what’s right for her character, it’s pitched that way. There are no jokes per se, there’s no slapstick, there’s humour, drama, emotion, romance, it’s all there, but it’s subtle.

“It’s a different masala.”

English Vinglish is showing on October 5 and 6th at Chinachem Golden Plaza Cinema, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
Shows: 9.30pm
Tickets: HK$120 - HK$180
Tel: Morning Star: 2368 2947



NOTES: Have written for Post magazine for years, my first cover story and that too with my fav subject in the world; Sridevi. Every teenage dream of mine came true.

Got a note from Shobhaa De, author and a power-that-be at Penguin India, to write Sridevi's biography. Hmm. Something to think about in 2013...

An archive of other interviews and features of mine with B'wood actors:

Hrithik Roshan, The Master's Apprentice 

Aishwarya Rai: Hooray for Bollywood

Abhishek Bachchan: Heir and Graces 

Priyanka Chopra: My Life 

Sushmita Sen: Universal Appeal 

Amazing to see Sridevi on the cover of Hong Kong's largest circulated magazine (in English). South China Morning Post's weekend magazinee, Post magazine.

UPDATE: Note from Gauri Shinde below. I die! =0)

I met Gauri Shinde and Sridevi Today.

No other byte. Just wanted to mark one of those amazing, dreamy, dreamy days...

Sridevi's Top Ten Dances: India's Greatest Actress was a phenomenal dancer albeit not a trained one!

My feature for Filmzine.

By P.Ramakrishnan

Long before the term 'item number' hit the Hindi film vernacular and the Indian tabloids, southern sensation Sridevi was uplifting the cinematic experience with her dose of glamour, grace and dancing style in Mumbai's movie musicals. Her dances are a highlight of many a movie that are otherwise unwatchable, particularly in the drivel of the 1980s/early '90s!

Sridevi had an innate, untutored talent for dance, she never studied the art unlike her South Indian contemporaries like Meenakshi Sheshadri, Jaya Prada, Bhanupriya, Radha or famed film rival and Kathak-exponent Madhuri Dixit. What she did have was natural rhythm and a treasure-trove of myriad expressions that enchanted choreographers. The audience couldn't wait to get to the part where Sridevi let loose on the big screen with her magical moves in films that often had little else.

Sridevi's sizzling act on screen was often partnered with non-dancers like Rajesh Khanna, Sunny Deol, Anil Kapoor and the like, much to the chagrin of choreographers. But they were left unperturbed as the opportunity to work with "the great Sridevi" was compensation.

She could do any number with ease, be it classical, modern or a western number. You wanted her to break-dance and emulate Michael Jackson? Done. Do a navasara-nritya under the shadow of the Natraj? No problem. Seduce on screen in monochrome chiffon saris? Done, and how! She made the template of the seductive heroine drenched in a wet sari, singing to entice the hero/the entire audience! 

Sridevi was a Jack(y) of all trades, no step beyond her reach, no expression beyond her faculty. Like her Tamilian predecessors Vyjayanthimala, Hema Malini, Rekha, it was the unspoken yet acknowledged rule that to rule Bollywood, acting chops and scintillating beauty wasn't enough; you had to dance like a dream.

And even in the garish technicolour dream sequences of the ‘80s, Sridevi shone through. Whittling down the list to just ten song/dance sequences is hard (with nearly 75 Hindi films and roughly six songs in each, that's a lengthy cinematic CV) but here's what it, roughly, boils down to:




10. Main lagti hoon Sridevi
Choreographer: Saroj Khan
Singer: Aasha Bhosle
Music: Bappi Lahiri
Film: Nakka Bandi (1990)

Never heard of it? Youtube it. The film Naaka Bandi is God-awful, but the song is a complete delight. The lyrics are deliciously loopy. The choreography isn't perfect but watch Sridevi in her cheeky, unadulterated best as she mimics yesteryear actresses. Note her comic timing and getting the gist of her predecessors in two-second shots. Irreverent but without being rude, Sridevi, as always, gets it right.


9. Morni baaga maan bole aadhi

Choreographer: Saroj Khan
Singer: Lata Mangeshkar
Music: Shiv Hari
Film: Lamhe (1991)

Oh what a song! What a film! What a performance! Five-time Filmfare winner, Lamhe was the most surprising flop under the Yash Raj banner, yet the film walked away with the most astonishing bounty of awards and acclaim. This isn't the big jhatak-matak number that Sridevi was most oft famed for. Simple, subtle, a reinterpretation of a traditional Rajasthani folk song, its magic.

Megha re megha, Mohe chedo na and Morni were a series of songs Sridevi performs as Pallavi, the older woman Virendra Pratap Singh (Anil Kapoor) falls for. It’s hard to pick which of the three numbers were better than the other, but for argument’s sake, lets elect Morni. The undulating sands, the gorgeous (Neeta Lulla’s National Award winning-) outfits, the intricate movements and expressions, its heaven on the ear and easy on the eye.


8. Main aisi cheez nahin

Choreographer: Saroj Khan
Singer: Kavita Krishnamurthy and Mohd Aziz
Music: Laxmikant Pyarelal
Film: Khuda Gawah (1993)

Although Sridevi was in a league of her own like her Goliath co-star Amitabh Bachchan, the two superstars appeared on film together just thrice; Inquilab (1984), Aakhri Raasta (1986) and, the best of the lot, Khuda Gawah (1992). The dance perhaps best captures the unspoken yet palpable sense of competition the reigning royals of Bollywood had while sharing screen-space. The engulfing costumes can barely tame the leonine Sri from giving the number her almighty all. Even Big B’s left watching her agape at the ferocity of his leading lady and was most notably eclipsed by the lunar charms of Chandni herself. 


7. Dushman dil ka jo hai 

Choreographer: Chinni Prakash
Singer: Kavita Krishnamurthy
Music: Laxmikant Pyarelal
Film: Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja (1993)

It’s the song that inspired Amitabh Bachchan to send a truck-load –not a bouquet, but a damn truck!--of flowers to Sridevi’s house much to her sheer joy and self-professed embarrassment. Roop Ki Rani... was excessive in every way, the over-the-top mishmash of every Hindi film plotline and cliché was an expensive and expansive venture. It was a lengthy yarn which left audiences yawning.

Indubitably, the best bits of the film include Sridevi and some (not all!) of the dance numbers stand out. As dance director Chinni Prakash says, “When you see a dance, the first thing you see is the face and Sri is ex-ce-llent in the face.” See the multi-shots focusing just on her expressions near the end of the song's antra. Damn right, she’s excellent.

6. Tarapat Beete 

Choreographer: Gopi Krishna
Singer: Lata Mangeshkar
Music: Rajesh Roshan
Film: Jaag Utha Insaan (1984)

One of Sri’s earlier (and better) films with the much-whispered about co-star Mithun Chakraborthy, Sridevi has three incredible semi-classical numbers in the film choreographed by the dancer of dancers, Gopi Krishna. The fact she gets her mudras bang-on and posture perfect without lengthy lessons makes her performance all the more laudable. Her kuchipudi number in the temple and her tandav is a work of art. As Bharatnatyam danseuse and Malayali actress Shobana says, “The fact the Sridevi’s not a trained dancer yet so good makes her one of my favourites.” Many would concur.


5. Nainon mein sapna

Choreographer: P.A. Saleem
Singers: Lata Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar
Music: Bappi Lahiri
Film: Himmatwala (1983)

The song that started it all? Perhaps. Sridevi was already a mega-star in regional films and with a flop like Solva Saawan with Amol Palekar behind her, she burst into the collective consciousness in flashes of orange and hot pink. In scintillating amrapali outfits among hundreds of pots and pans, feather dusters - don’t forget the feather dusters – its Sridevi shimmering throughout this metrical exercise. It ignited a slew of similar cutlery doubled as accessories dance numbers for the succeeding diabolical decade. Gori tere ang ang main is almost an exact sequel in Tohfa. The antics with her white-pant and white-shoe’d co-star Jeetendra (who on second-viewing appears notably stiff unlike her other limber dancing co-star Rishi Kapoor) is the defining image of the masala movie mayhem of 1983. Sridevi in her conical bra-like tops maintained a distinct lack-of vulgarity in an era otherwise crippled with it.



4. Classical music 

Choreographer: Saroj Khan

Music: Laxmikant Pyarelal
Film: Chaalbaaz (1989)

Who needs words? Like Janet Jackson, Sridevi made the country grove to her rhythm nation. Chaalbaaz was a tour-de-force double dose by the diva as she essayed both Manju and Anju with equal panache. Forget the comical duets in the film (award-winning Kisike haath and Tera beemar mera dil), watch the dances that Sridevi does in the early reels to instrumental beats, as she wraps each step with rage, fear and tears. It’s a new-age taandav that should not be missed as she whips the air with her long plaits and burns the carpet with her steady steps. It's high performance art. 


3. Kaate nahin kathe yeh din yeh raat

Choreographer: Saroj Khan
Singer: Alisha Chinai and Kishore Kumar
Music: Laxmikant Pyarelal
Film: Mr India (1987)

For the past 25 years, Kate nahin katthe has lead the pack as the sexiest rain-drenched duet of all-time. Mercifully, choreographer Saroj Khan (who had a rather tumultuous relationship with Sridevi though their interlinked careers provided many of the aforementioned dance nuggets) kept non-dancer and one-step wonder Anil Kapoor, hidden in the shadows and she reserved the thundering steps for thunder-thigh’d Sridevi. It was raining amen. Every rain-song that’s followed (and there have been many done by younger and lesser stars) remains a pale imitation to this class act. As the adage goes, many have imitated, none have bettered.


2. Main teri dushman

Choreographer: Saroj Khan
Music: Laxmikant Pyarelal
Film: Nagina (1986)

A song can't make a movie run is the axiom, but in 1986, Sridevi proved otherwise. Rising above a mediocre script filled with jantar mantars and snakes morphing into people and vice-versa, the highlight of the film is the climactic song that drew audiences in droves. As snake charmer Amirsh Puri’s been starts echoing across the halls of the haunted haveli, Sridevi starts undulating to the music in an erotic blend of sensuality and venom. As a genre, Nagina is a mystical, fantasy thriller but the real thrill is watching the curvaceous Sridevi dance in a flurry and flourish as her sequined ghagra spins around her evil sapera. As a dance, Main teri dushman is a trinity of genres amalgamated; movements from Punjabi folk, expressions and gestures from Bharatanatyam and Kathak's heady turns, all cobbled together for the seven-and-half minute finale. 


1. Mere haathon mein nau nau choodiyan 

Choreographer: Saroj Khan
Singer: Lata Mangeshkar
Music: Shiv Hari
Film: Chandni (1989)

The song bursts into the screen four minutes into the movie and the beats have echoed across weddings from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Sung with the impish glee of a sixteen year-old by sexagenarian (at the time) legend Lata Mangeshkar, knitted with an infectious beat and complimented with memorably cheeky lyrics, Sridevi elevated a wedding song into an anthem.

As Yash Chopra says, “Sridevi gets very excited about a dance number. I’ll do this and I’ll do that, she says and puts a lot of her personal contribution as an artiste into each song.”

The song captures all of Sridevi in a nutshell; its got her child-like innocence and insouciance, her sauciness, her animated antics, her comic genius and her sultry act all rolled into one rocking number. Phew, that’s some number.

Sridevi was an ace actress who could dance; she wasn't a dancer who could act. There's a distinction.