Sridevi: Remembering the Bollywood icon

It was said about the 70’s Bollywood actress Mumtaz, that she resurrected the fizzling careers of Rajesh Khanna and Shashi Kapoor. It wouldn’t be incorrect to say that it was Sridevi who helped Yash Chopra redeem his lost glory through his comeback venture Chandni after a string of unsuccessful films. With Lamhe being the biggest international success, the spell was finally broken and Yash Chopra never looked back after that.

When the late Sridevi turned down the offer to work with Amitabh Bachchan in Khuda Gawah, rumour has it the actor sent a truck full of roses to convince her as he needed a hit desperately after an unprecedented number of flops including Ajooba, Jaadugar, Main Azaad Hoon and Toofan. Time and again she had come forward to rescue the men of the industry including her own husband Boney Kapoor who was facing a severe financial crunch in the 2000s. Sridevi was taken on board by Sahara One for a very forgettable project called Malini Iyer at a fee which was unheard of in the television industry. They all knew that if anyone could guarantee success at the box office, it was her. If anyone could draw audience to cinema like bees to a hive, then Sridevi was the only option.

The Stardom

The advent of Sridevi coincided with the end of the Hema-Rekha era. The Rati-Padmini brigade simply did not have impressive star value and the 5'7'' tall Sridevi soon dwarfed the competition. The reign of Sridevi has been a record of sorts in the heroine sweepstakes. She has been at the top for the longest spell among the Indian screen's queen bees. The actress successfully stormed the bastion of Hindi films with Himmatwala and became part of Jeetendra's Madras machinery which regularly churned out formula films.

With Sadma, where she played a child-woman, she won her first National Award. Being the highest paid actress in the 80’s and on top of her game in films like Nagina, Chaandni and ChaalBaaz, she performed with an awesome array of expressions winning the audiences and critics both.

But the nineties had not been very kind to Sridevi; films like Lamhe, Khuda Gawah and Gumrah, though running testaments to her talent, proved to be economic non-performers and finally the debacle of the soporific extravaganza Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja forced the queen to abdicate the throne. She had become just too big for the run-of-the-mill characters, but her fire was yet not doused.

It was truly ironic that Bollywood of the 90's almost did not know what to do with a talent like Sridevi. Mahesh Bhatt, who had directed Sridevi in her film Gumrah and was the first one to break the news of Sridevi’s death live during a reality show, shared his regrets; "Back then, we just could not rise to her potential. We neither had the imagination nor the courage to create roles worthy of her."

The truth is, she remained big right till the end - it was the films that got smaller.

The Return

I have always been one of the avid participants and a frontline warrior whenever fans broke out into a Twitter war that involved her and her arch-rival, Madhuri Dixit. I will also honestly admit that I was the happiest when I read reviews of Madhuri’s comeback venture Aja Nachle and I celebrated the fact that it had tanked at the box office. I was over the moon when a few years later Sridevi decided to come back to where she belonged i.e. on the film set for English Vinglish. The fact that she had chosen a deglamorized role that relies far more on her histrionics was a brave decision. It was a master stroke which introduced a new generation to the phenomenon known as Sridevi. She was hailed as the 'Meryl Streep of India' and was once again flooded with offers. That had given a new lease of life to the millions of fans and once again she was winning hearts all around until she sprung a nasty surprise in Dubai.

The Final Exit

For me, this bad dream hasn’t ended as yet. Often, I drive past the Jumeirah Emirates Towers hotel where she breathed her last and it brings back all the bad memories of the ill-fated night. Death of an idol or a close one tears you apart and leaves you with a faint question of ‘what could have been?’. What if she were alive at this time? How would she have performed the iconic character Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada’s Hindi remake with Alia Bhatt playing the role of Andria Sachs, a script that was in the works by Dharma Productions. What scripts would she have chosen? What will be a Sridevi-less world for us? What will be our reference points now? How about a closure on what really happened that night?

She was a private person and she left as one. Despite her success, she remained an enigma all her life. Even her regular co-star Rishi Kapoor commented, "All we ever said to each other was Hi and Bye." Probably the pain and anger of her long struggle forms the mortar for the walls of privacy that she had built around her. But in 2019, one year after her demise, a biography called Sridevi: The Eternal Screen Goddess by Satyarth Nayak was published which shared some interesting insights into her life which was well received. Earlier this month, Boney Kapoor announced another biography called Sridevi: The Life of a Legend by Dhiraj Kumar which is expected to be launched soon.

Sadiq Saleem is a Dubai based entertainment writer. His Instagram handle is @sadiqidas.