She was the high-maintenance diva in ChaalBaaz, was heartbreakingly innocent and cruel in Sadma, the determined homemaker in English Vinglish whose eyes conveyed a lot more than words – Sridevi had the chameleon-like ability to slip into a character or just transform into her on-screen superstar avatar. She became a superstar at a time when Bollywood did not have well-etched out characters for women. Sridevi may have acted in many forgettable movies, but she was never forgettable on-screen. Whether it’s Vidya Balan or Deepika Padukone, Trisha or Nayanthara, these contemporary actresses have big shoes to fill to truly earn the moniker of ‘Superstar’ that Sridevi owned.
Sridevi starred in about 300 films as the lead, hitting that number is an achievement in itself. Writing a tribute for Sridevi is not an easy task but three popular 90s Telugu entertainers come to my mind when I think of her: Jagadeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari, Kshana Kshanam, and Govinda Govinda.
Jagadeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari
In this fantasy thriller, Indraja (Sridevi) is an angel; with Chiranjeevi playing the role of a do-gooder (back then, this is the one role that A-list actors loved playing). The angel is of the opinion that the Earth is beautiful. She gets her father’s permission to visit the wonders inhabited by humans, animals, and filth. While she’s making merry with her gal-pals in the Himalayas, she loses her ring which is supposed to be her gate-pass to Heaven (Indraja’s official residence). This untoward incident brings the two of them together giving the audience a two-and-half hour ride of humour, music, action, devotion, and cheap-thrills.
Kshana Kshanam
Kshana Kshanam is where Sridevi takes the form of a simpleton. She’s not an angel here. She’s a scaredy-cat named Satya who believes people blindly. She teams up with Venkatesh to solve a mystery. Their dialogues and body language still tickle me. The scenes featuring Paresh Rawal and Sridevi are no less than a laugh riot.
Govinda Govinda
Naveena (Sridevi), an NRI, visits the Venkateswara Temple (Tirumala). To her, as Nagarjuna (guide/taxi driver in the film) says, everything in India seems foreign; whether it’s a monkey showing up, or a young boy getting his head tonsured near the temple. She’s a tourist so she photographs whatever she sees. And, almost everything that catches her eyes fascinates her. This film’s storyline, too, mixes humour, music, action and devotion.
Sridevi’s charisma
In all the three films, Sridevi plays the role of an innocent outsider. In Jagadeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari, she doesn’t know what rice looks like, or what kissing means. She’s untouched by the desires of the human heart. In one of the funny scenes in Kshana Kshanam, she cries loudly and slowly reveals the lies she has told her mother. This sudden emotional outburst is triggered by fear. She’s afraid that the animals in the forest might attack them as they take shelter under a moonlit night. Similar traces of innocence can be found in Govinda Govinda as well.
The one thing that K. Raghavendra Rao (director of Jagadeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari) and Ram Gopal Varma (director of Kshana Kshanam, Govinda Govinda) agree upon is that they place Sridevi as the epitome of beauty. In Rao’s film, Athiloka Sundari refers to Sridevi’s enchanting looks. Varma, on the other hand, who’s a hardcore Sridevi-worshipper, gives his lyricist Sirivennela Seetharama Sastry, full power to describe her as a heavenly treasure in the song, ‘Amma Bramha Devudo’.
Sridevi has acted in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi films. Her roles in Bollywood had catapulted her to super-stardom. The fact that she starred in numerous Tamil films alongside Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth and with NT Rama Rao in many Telugu films, is enough to say that she ruled the box office in the North and South equally.
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Recommended
When Sridevi made her comeback with English Vinglish, she proved that age is not a factor for senior actresses to deliver a box-office hit. At a time when stars from her generation, Urvashi, Ramya Krishnan, and Raadhika, find it hard to bag meaty parts – (a Baahubali for Ramya Krishnan or a Magalir Mattum for Urvashi, happens rarely) – Sridevi showed that all that is needed is good author-backed roles. She was last seen in the Bollywood film Mom.
Will Sridevi’s stellar career be an inspiration to the current filmmakers to offer good roles to the actresses and have enough confidence and faith that to get a box-office hit, you don’t always need a Vijay or a Salman, sometimes good scripts and talent are enough?