Superstar, gone too soon

Nonika Singh

MANNEQUIN, almost doll-like, or age-defying timeless beauty — as I feasted my eyes on Sridevi at the International Film Festival of India, Goa, just a few months ago, I couldn’t quite decide what description truly fit her million-dollar dazzling persona. But whichever way, I was taken in by her star-lit aura, as I’m sure was anyone present. She spoke little; in public, she was always reticent.

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There was little indication of an underlying medical condition that one presumes might have led to a massive cardiac arrest that took her life in Dubai on Saturday night — brother-in-law and actor Sanjay Kapoor said she had no history of heart ailment. In the end, her heart may have failed her, but she ruled the hearts of millions, and that is here to stay. For sure. 

Beginning her acting career at age four, from the South she transformed into this icon of Bollywood who delivered hit after hit. Her astounding acting prowess was never ever in doubt. Be it her heartfelt portrayal in ‘Sadma’ or goofiness personified in ‘Chaalbaaz’, the girl smitten by a man old enough to be her father in ‘Lamhe’, the ‘Hawa hawaaii girl’ of ‘Mr India’…by all yardsticks Sridevi was the original queen of Bollywood. As long as she acted, she reigned on the marquee and then after the megahit ‘Judaai’ in 1997, she gave it all up for a life in domesticity.

Today stories about what a doting wife and mother she was abound. Onlookers may not have quite understood what she saw in the much-married producer Boney Kapoor, but he never left her side. Fifteen years later, she made a stupendous comeback with ‘English Vinglish’ in a much slimmer avatar of herself. And he was there at the Toronto film festival cheering for her as she was dubbed the ‘Meryl Streep of India’. Did she take her stardom and such effusive praise seriously? On the surface certainly not, and confessed to that rare ability for an exceptionally dedicated actor to snap out of her reel character. ‘A director’s actor’ is what she called herself, or an instinctive one who knew exactly what was expected of her. Both cynical critics and fawning admirers alike bowed before her versatility to transform, her malleability to get into the skin of characters (comic or tragic) she played.

Her latest outing ‘Mom’ did not set the Box Office ablaze but even in the not-so-critically acclaimed film she held her own.

One of the most charming and enduring heroines of the Indian film industry without a doubt, had she lived her fans would have seen more of her in films such as the sequel of ‘English Vinglish’ and rejoice in the debut of her daughter Jhanvi Kapoor in ‘Dhadak’, who we so hope and wish has inherited at least some of her acting genes. But even her lovely daughters can’t fill the space she occupied. RIP, Sridevi.

Cauldron’s song ‘Dreams die young’ plays on the mind. “If I go down — no regrets, I take a sip with my last breath.” Here’s raising a toast to Sridevi, and her numerous films, 280 in all, a whole lot of which cine-buffs won’t forget in a hurry.