Kamal Haasan reflects on Sridevi's career, marriage proposal and legacy

Kamal Haasan's piece on Sridevi for the Mumbai Film Festival brochure. Sridevi was honoured with a screening of her films.

"....But this girl was young, only 13 yeas old. I had of course known of her because she was a famous child actor, and I had seen her on posters. She got the part, and that became our first film, Moondru Mudichu ((Tamil, 1976).

By then, I had done five films with Mr Balachander. I was his blue-eyed boy, his assistant, and probably, the class pupil leader. So when Sridevi joined, I was given the responsibility of rehearsing with her. Since people have seen us romancing each other on screen, they've assumed that we were on a first-name basis. but the fact is, till the day she died, she called me sir - something that is rare in a hero-heroine equation.

We were very similar. We were both child actors who became successful. Hollywood has a long tradition of child actors becoming big stars, but that wasn't the case in the Tamil or the Indian film industry. I sometimes thought she'd never make it. But she was a faster learner, and we ended up doing 27 films together. So, in a sense, I've seen 27 steps of her, of her remarkable rise. Even after she became a star. hardly anything changed between us. She always kept that corner for me: when we were alone, I could still recognise that location , and find that Sridevi.

So that was our relationship. With Mr. Balachander around, like a godfather, we almost behaved like siblings. We liked each other, her mother liked me a lot. She used to tell me, "Why don't you marry her?" And I'd say, "Oh no! It'd be like marrying within the family." In my early days of knowing Sridevi, she was so young, that I'd often make fun of her. She'd be sitting in her mother's lap and eating. I used to tell her mother, "What nonsense is this? You're spoiling her." Then I'd turn to Sridevi and say, "Is this what you'll do even after getting married: have dinner in your mum's lap?"

She was unparalleled as an actress. You can't equate her to Shabana-ji or Meena Kumari-ji, and I admired that. She was her own thing, always willing to perform for the audience. That's what made her a star as well. you could see the glint in her eyes when she as acting. She never hesitated to playing to the gallery: something considered inferior by many actors. but that's what made her great. That's what made Charlie Chaplin great. For her, the audience mattered.

She wasn't too concerned with sweating the small stuff, which, I thought was fantastic. She didn't learn classical dance, for instance. A conventional dancer would concentrate on the posture, the beat, the rhythm, the position and coordination of the leg, hand, and eye, it is complicated. But she'd concentrate on what was in the frame - out of mind, out of sight - and yet, she was able to bring it all together in a piece. That was her forte, her magic, she understood the medium like no other.

When we met for an award function, at the Yash Raj studio last year, we hugged, it was unusual, because we never did the filmi style hugging in real life. But that day we did - I don't know why. And that hug lasted more than the usual podium hugs last. That was the last time I hugged her. That was the last I saw of her.