In this special feature, Subhash K Jha remembers the exceptional actress Sridevi.
Seven years have passed since Sridevi’s left us suddenly. Not a day passes when we are not reminded of her ubiquitousness…That snatch of a song from Sadma, the cute quirky clipping from Judaai, that melodramatic confrontation scene with the late Smita Patil(they must be exchanging notes in heaven) in the long-forgotten Nazrana which Raveena’s dad Ravi Tandon directed….I know of no other actor in the world who could rise so much above the script. So high she touched the sky, and we gazed from down below, always awestruck by her arresting artistry.
How did she do it? The great Kamal Haasan once told me it was the art of mimicry. “She’s a fantastic observer. Whenever she is working with me, she keeps observing and absorbing, and then she uses the quirks and punctuations from my performance to create her own grammar.”
Questions on her death still remain unanswered. The autopsy report from Dubai stated she died of “accidental drawning(sic.)”. Forget the fact that the certificate doesn’t even have the decency to spell the cause of her death correctly. What about the sheer impropriety of the nature of her death? Who dies by drowning in a bathtub? No autopsy can determine accidental drowning. It can evaluate just the cause of death as drowning. Whether it is an accident or not would be determined by circumstantial evidence.
How did she fall and die in the bathtub? How did she get there?? Her husband claims she got up to go to the hotel bathroom to get ready to go out for dinner with him. Given that she had to get ready quickly as her husband was waiting to take her to dinner, would she fill up the bathtub for a bath or take a shower and be done with it? A bathtub that size takes a minimum of 25-30 minutes to fill. But miracle of miracles, Sridevi had it filled, got into it, and was drowned in it, all in 15 minutes…Unless she had it filled from before, ready for the catastrophe. And then, even more miraculously, there was not a drop of water anywhere outside the bathtub. It’s all very confusing.
Boney Kapoor says he called a friend when he couldn’t revive his wife in the bathtub. Who is this mysterious friend whom he called instead of calling the cops or the hotel staff? The police were not informed about the sudden death for three hours. The protocol for hotel staff is to call the police. The scary part is not so much that she died, leaving behind many unanswered questions. The scarier part is those questions will now be never answered. There should have been a second autopsy before her cremation. Now, there will be questions remaining about her death, as it happened with Marilyn Monroe. We have a right to know how she died. Sridevi’s death is not a family matter. She belonged to every Indian.
When Sridevi died, Boney Kapoor’s dream of Mr India Part 2. The big plans of doing a sequel to Shekhar Kapoor’s Mr India are finally over. It makes no sense to have a sequel without Sridevi. It’s like Mother India without Nargis Or Agra without the Taj Mahal. Mr India is so closely associated with three main actors: Anil Kapoor, Amrish Puri, and Sridevi. With two of them gone, it would be impossible to recreate the magic of the original. It looks like many dreams died along with Sridevi. Mr India being one of them. RIP.
Nobody knows Sridevi’s secret formula for her onscreen performances. But whatever it was, it was magic. She could take the silliest of scenes in the worst T Rama Rao/K Bappaiah directorial starring the one(and only) Jeetendra and breathe life into a carcass of a script. Or she could make the most obnoxious dance steps look graceful.
Recalling her magic, Jeetendra told me. “There will never be another like her. Interestingly, Rekha was instrumental in facilitating Sridevi’s stardom in Hindi cinema. I worked on 18 films with Sridevi and 30 films with Rekha. Rekha was the first choice for Himmatwala, the film that catapulted Sridevi to stardom. But Rekha was committed to another project. That’s when we decided to launch a new girl. And the rest is history. Aise ittefaq aksar hote hain hamare industry mein(such coincidences often occur in this film industry). Rajesh Khanna and I were college friends, and we entered the film industry together. I was supposed to do the film Raaz. But when I couldn’t do it due to date issues, I sent the producer G P Sippy to Rajesh Khanna. The rest is, again, history.”
Himmatwala was not Sridevi’s Hindi debut. Earlier in 1989, she was launched with some fanfare in Solva Savan, a horribly botched-up remake of Bharathiraja’s Tamil film 16 Vayathinile, with Amol Palekar doing a terrible impersonation of Kamal Haasan. Understandably, it flopped. If it wasn’t for Jeetendra and director K Raghavendra Roo in Himmatwala, her career would have sunk without a trace.
This brings me to the Boney factor in Sridevi’s life and career. It was Boney who carved out her career in Hindi cinema. She looked towards her husband for guidance in both her real life and her career. But it wasn’t as if she didn’t have a mind of her own. This impression of the helpless wife was created by a section of the Mumbai press, probably because they couldn’t imagine a woman so beautiful and talented being so intelligent. Chal jhoothi!
In my conversations with her, I always found Sridevi to be sharp and certain, though quiet and shy. The first time I spoke to her, there was no cellphone. I had called Boney in Goa on the landline at his hotel. When I was connected to his room, I heard the familiar tinny voice say, “Hello?”
I froze. My throat went dry.
Finally, I mumbled, “Is that who I think it is?
She laughed her ‘Sridevi’ laughter (girlish, unspoilt, pure laughter) and didn’t pretend to not follow my fan fawning. “Yes, this is Sridevi. How can I help you? Boney is not in the room right now. Can I take a message?”
What struck me back then was her lack of affectation. Peel away the glamour, strip away the aura and Sridevi was just another devoted wife and mother. She would be shooting for English Vinglish or Mom and would worry about whether her daughters Jahnvi and Khushi were home on time and if Boney was eating right.
I feared Boney would go the Shashi Kapoor way after his wife’s death. But so far, Boney has not eaten himself to death. I don’t think he has come to terms with her loss as yet. None of us has. Wonder what life would we like when we realize she will never come back.
Grieving but dreaming…would be a good way to sum up Boney Kapoor’s mind. Boney has many plans to honour her memory. Foremost among these is a plan to host an exhibition of Sridevi’s paintings. Sridevi was a marvellous painter. In fact, way back in May 2010, one of her paintings, Thoughts, was auctioned at the prestigious Christie’s in London for a mindboggling Rs 22 lakhs. Sridevi has many paintings hanging in her home and gifted to close friends and relatives.
By now, it is quite evident that her husband, Boney Kapoor, will make a film on the life of the inimitable Sridevi. The question is, who will play Sridevi? Or rather, who would dare to play her?
I believe there is ample reason to believe that the chosen one would be Madhuri Dixit. If we look at the choices available to Boney, there is only Madhuri Dixit who has the stature, grace, range, and dancing abilities to play Sridevi. Also, Boney and his brother Anil have always been very closely associated with Madhuri ever since she worked with Anil in iconic films like Beta and Tezaab. Madhuri seems like the feasible fit to play Sridevi.
Would Madhuri agree to play the iconic actress with whom she was perpetually compared during their heydays? A few years ago, Madhuri stepped into a role –in Karan Johar’s Kalank—which was to be played by Sridevi before she died.
Playing Sridevi should be an honour and not a burden for Ms Dixit.
Sridevi was the heartthrob of millions—truly an icon beyond all icons. And to go in such a cruel way!… There she was, attending her husband Boney Kapoor’s nephew Mohit Marwah’s wedding festivities in Dubai. Lord knows Sridevi looked like a million bucks at the wedding, as she always does. (Did you ever see Sridevi looking ill-groomed?). With the wedding over, the family, including Boney Kapoor, returned to Mumbai.
But Sridevi decided to stay back in Dubai for some shopping. It proved a fatal mistake. Death came suddenly to claim her when the man who had held her hand through the most difficult of times was not there with her to hold her during her final journey. Boney’s devotion to his wife is beyond the precincts of human understanding. Married and with two growing children, Boney decided to start a fresh life with Sridevi. They met when she was trying to find her bearings in Bollywood.
Boney immediately took charge of her Bollywood career—she was already a major star in Tamil and Telugu—and then took charge of her life. She initially moved into Boney’s family residence because she abhorred staying in hotels during her long spells of shooting in Mumbai away from her home in Chennai.
Then, she never moved out.
Boney was completely in-charge of Sridevi’s life. I wonder how he is going to fill his days now. He considered her the best actress in the world, better than Meryl Streep and pushed for her place of supremacy with every breath he had.And she completely reciprocated his affections.
I remember Sridevi telling me, “I am not the least embarrassed or apologetic about my dependence on Boneyji. He is my lifeline. He looks after every little detail in my life. I can’t imagine what life would be without him.”
Of course, Sridevi needn’t answer that question. Destiny had completely different plans.
My hands would tremble every time I’d be on the phone with her. She tried to laugh away my discomfort. “Don’t be like that. I am nothing special. I just do my work to the best of my abilities, as I hope my daughters will do when they start their careers. Luckily for me, I haven’t lost my enthusiasm and passion for the camera. I still feel the same palpitation on my first day of shooting that I did when I started off as a child artiste in Tamil cinema when I was only 4. I never lost my excitement for acting. The day I do, I will quit.”
There have been many iconic actresses in Bollywood. What made Sridevi stand out among the legends? I once remember I was sitting with Yash Chopra at his bungalow. Sridevi had just given the performance of a lifetime in Judaai, the film Boney Kapoor produced for Sridevi just before they got married, which, in my opinion, is her best performance.
Yashji picked up the phone and dialed Sridevi at the Breach Candy, where she had just delivered her elder daughter. “Sri, listen after Judaai, you can’t just be a wife and a mother. You have to continue acting. I already have a script ready for you.”
Sridevi plunged into her role as a real-life mother, devoting her time to looking after her two daughters, Jahnvi and Khushi. Ironically, she couldn’t live to see her Jahnvi’s debut in Karan Johar’s Dhadak. This is a creepy, eerie replay of what happened when Arjun Kapoor, Boney’s firstborn from his first wife Mona, passed away months before seeing her son’s debut in Ishaaqzaade.
But Mona was ill. Sridevi didn’t know a day’s illness.
In my last conversation with her, she joked about her lifestyle and how Boney encouraged her to get wild. “I lead a very disciplined life. Boneyji tells me to stop being a saint and enjoy life.”
Life, it seems, had other plans.
