The Hotel Series.
Did you know for the first decade in Bollywood (well... Bombay that eventually became Mumbai!) Sridevi lived in hotels and never had a place of her own?!
You'll notice in several magazine shoots (that were not done on film sets), Sridevi's "house" was always lounges of popular five-star hotels dotted around Mumbai. It seems funny now but back then, after her initial film (Solva Saawan) flopped, Sri never thought she'd make it in Mumbai and never got a place of her own as she didn't want to commit to an expensive city where career may or may not take off!
"For the last ten years I've been staying in a hotel whenever I'm in Bombay. I leave the room at 9 a.m and come back at night. I feel quite depressed returning to an impersonal room. I call up my mother in Madras, go off to sleep, then the routine begins all over again the next morning. I could continued to stay in a hotel... itne saalon se producers ne bardasht to kiya hai...[for so many years producers tolerated me].... but no, I can't keep on living like this. The hotel kitchen does make special meals for me. I don't like too much oil in my food but I don't know... I need a place I can call my own. I need home cooked food. I'm extremely fond of fish prawn crab and lobster. I can cook too.. boiled chicken, vegetables, everything.. but only I can eat the result. Everyone else makes faces.
Finally, her family got her a place.
Looking back on that era, Sri famously said, "For 10 years, I lived in a hotel in Mumbai. And believe me living in a hotel is a real pain. Don't get me wrong though, there was nothing wrong with the hotel I stayed in. In fact, they took very good care of me. There's something so impersonal about a hotel. It's a strange place, it's not home. And the walk across the lobby after doing double or triple shifts is just too much. Besides there's no privacy. I like having my own people around me. I would also miss home cooked food, I used to yearn for piping hot chapattis."
Quote from Filmfare archive interview.
Images from variously shoots throughout the 1980s!
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