Monday, 10 February 2025

Women in arms: Rekha, Madhuri Dixit, Rekha, Hema Malini: Number One Actresses of India


Women in arms: Rekha, Madhuri Dixit, Rekha Hema Malini: 

Number One Actresses of India... 

Which is such a bizarre way to credit the top stars of their time. 

Legends all and since they left their position, the slots have been left empty. The era and aura of true blue superstars is over. Every Friday the contenders change in a game of musical chairs; during the peak of these ladies, they were undisputed queens as hits and flops rose and splattered on the road, without affecting their position, status or superstardom. 


Sridevi makeup free




 

Sridevi at a birthday party of... someone down South! Makeup free Sridevi.

Sunday, 9 February 2025

Rare portrait: Sridevi with Jackie Shroff for Aura magazine: 1991

Outtakes from a cover shoot for the (now defunct) Aura magazine, Sridevi and Jackie Shroff pose for their favourite photographer Rakesh Shreshta. More rare pics from this cover shoot are in the archive here.

 

Salman Khan with Sridevi

 



Salman Khan with Sridevi 

Lady in Pink: Sridevi




Her face was her fortune... Sridevi

 

Saturday, 8 February 2025

Fact Check: Sridevi's filmography: 266 not 300 films!



So its a point of contention between hardcore Sridevi fans and... fact checkers! Without any qualifiers, a statement was released around the release of Mom that it was Sridevi's 300th film. Now, having worked with very strict editors - particularly the meticulous New York Times fact checkers - every figure and statement had to have verifiable evidence. Now when it comes to film journalism - particularly for bloggers and sound bytes on television - what sounds good is better than what facts are.

Fans have listed unreleased films, incomplete films, dubbed ones (as opposed to entirely re-made films like say Sadma or Tohfa and so on) to amp up the number for... no valid reason. We've - and I'm adding other reasonable, moderate, thinking Bollywood insiders, as opposed to blind fanatics - drawn up the list and its about 266 films released in cinemas over Sridevi's prolific 50-year career.

Starting with this and a few more - we're launching a category called Fact Check. So look out for more.

Indian media, particularly film journalism and television journalism - is hardly a paragon of verisimilitude and virtue. If anything came out during Sridevi's untimely and tragic passing, Indian television news is the absolute bottom-feeder in the hierarchy of journalistic standards, morals and ethics. Too many to list in the horrors they revealed when soooo many stars spoke out against the television trolls.





Teenage Sridevi in costume for Tamil Cinema

 Teenage Sridevi in costume for Tamil Cinema 

Anyone recognise the look? Which song/film/year?!