Hailed as the first pan-Indian female superstar in an era which literally offered actresses crumbs, Sridevi tamed Hindi cinema like no other. Beginning her affair with the camera when she was four, this doe-eyed beauty conquered Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada industries with performances etched in gold. Taking Hindi cinema by storm with Himmatwala in 1983, Sridevi emerged as one of the most iconic screen goddesses of India, playing characters that went on to become cultural touchstones.
A supreme artiste who had mastered all the nine rasas, her comedy was peerless, her dances legendary, her histrionics awe-inspiring and her life a study in contrast, electric on screen, strangely reticent off it. Besides reigning as queen bee for the longest spell among Hindi heroines, she also remains the only actress who was No.1 in Tamil and Telugu cinema as well.
Such was Sridevi's megastardom that she emerged as the 'hero' at the box office, towering above her male co-actors. Challenging patriarchy in Bollywood like no other, she not only exalted the status of the Hindi film heroine but also empowered a whole generation of audiences. After a hiatus of fifteen years, she shattered the rules again by becoming the only Bollywood diva to make a triumphant comeback in 2012 with the globally acclaimed English Vinglish.
If her life played out forever in the limelight, so did her sudden demise in 2018. Charting five decades of her larger-than-life magic, this book celebrates both the phenomenon and the person Sridevi was. This is her journey from child star to one of our greatest movie luminaries who forever changed the narrative of Indian cinema.
Satyarth Nayak is an author and screenwriter based in Mumbai. A former SAARC Literary award-winning correspondent with CNN-IBN, Delhi, he holds a master's in English literature from St Stephen's, New Delhi. Satyarth's debut novel, The Emperor's Riddles, released in 2014 and became a bestselling historical thriller, earning comparisons with Dan Brown. His short stories have won the British Council Award and appeared in Sudha Murty's Penguin anthology Something Happened on the Way to Heaven. Satyarth has also scripted Sony's epic show Porus, touted as India's biggest historical TV series. A regular speaker at various literature festivals, he has been named as one of the Top 51 authors to follow on Facebook. Satyarth is currently writing a fantasy web series for Amazon Prime, working on books on Indian mythology and exploring scripts in Bollywood. A self-confessed cinephile, this is his first non-fiction book.
It's sort of fitting that I am today writing a foreword for a book on Sridevi given that I grew up idolizing her. Sometimes, it is hard to believe that she is gone.
I met Sridevi for the first time around 1989 during the shooting of Pathar Ke Insan (1990). I was around thirteen then. My father (Shomu Mukerji) was the producer and director of the film, which starred Sridevi, Vinod Khanna, Jackie Shroff and Poonam Dhillon. I vividly recall that at the very first meeting she told my dad, 'You must put your daughter in the movies.' And I was like, 'No way am I going to be in the movies.' It is sheer coincidence that the same evening Yash Chopra came to meet my dad at the studio and he got him to hear a recording of Sridevi singing the song ' Chandni 0 Meri Chandni'. My first reaction was slightly childish. I wasn't really impressed by the song and I even remember saying this to my father.
However, when the movie came out, it was a completely different story. In fact, Chandni (1989) released around five months before my father's film, and I remember that I was crazy about this film. I bought the videotape and played it so many times that the recording almost wore out.
In December, that same year, Chaalbaaz (1989) released; Chandni and Chaalbaaz were my two ultimate favourites. Sadma (1983) is also an eternal favourite.
All of this happened before I made my debut with Bekhudi (1992). So you can say that she was the only film star I was actually crazy about before I joined the movies.
When I was around eighteen, I was shooting for one of my films in Film City, Mumbai, and I heard that Sridevi was also shooting in the same studio. I quickly called my dad and asked him to drive to the studio. I wanted him to take me across to meet her so that I could tell her in person how 'crazy' I was about her. And also tell her how awesome she is. It was my first 'star-struck' meeting. Selfies were still quite distant in the future. Otherwise, I would have clicked one with her back then. It is odd but my selfie with her came just a few months before she passed away. Both of us were at designer Manish Malhotra's home in Bandra and that's where that photo-op happened.
Besides that memorable selfie moment, I remember that in the course of the years I met her quite a few times. And every time, I noticed there was such a disparity; she was so different in person and on-screen. In her real life she was soft-spoken, unassuming and gentle. She possessed a canny intelligence but it was always hidden under the politest of manners; her face exuded warmth.
Coming to what she meant to me as an actor, I must say that I truly and deeply respected Sridevi. As I mentioned earlier, as a person, she had that native intelligence as far as the film industry was concerned. I do not think you can ever teach that to anyone. And as an actor, she was even more shrewd. She knew which script would work, which wouldn't. She had the pulse of the audience at all times. She knew the camera so well-how it would shoot her, which was her best angle. She actually did her own make-up and transformed herself every single time on-screen, which I find amazing. All of us need a make-up artist to make us look our best, but not Sridevi. She paid attention to the minutest of details. If you watch her movies, in any random order, you will feel like you are studying a textbook. At least that's how I always feel. From the way she used her dupatta to the way she tied her saris, everything was so perfect. Her eyes spoke volumes.
She also considered everything, right down to the last detail like when to run barefoot and when to run with her shoes on. Likewise, there are films in which she has her nail varnish on, others where she is without any. Her jewellery, her accessories, she had it all down pat. It was all so thorough. So well-planned. The beauty was she never let Sridevi the persona take over her character.
In my view, she is the first woman superstar of this country. I don't think any other leading lady could have given Amitabh Bachchan a `takkar' in Khuda Gawah (1992). Besides her, I don't think anyone else could have matched him. She was formidable in her movies.
In my head, she continues to remain a formidable force. Even at the risk of sounding like a fangirl, I must add that the memory of Sridevi will always dominate Indian cinema.
Finally, Sridevi was and will always remain special to me.
**Contents and Sample Pages**
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