I need to start this with saying Jaya Prada was an exceptional, natural, South Indian beauty, a truly magnificent dancer and a fine actress. She was a glamorous staple in Bollywood throughout the 1980s but neither luck nor box-office favoured her as much as it did Sridevi. The feud between the two female leads of Indian cinema - Sridevi and Jaya Prada - is legendary - and unlike the paper war between Madhuri and Sridevi (more fiction than fact), this was as real as it gets.
Recently, in the first quarter of 2021, be it in Comedy Nights with Kapil or on Indian Idol Season 12, Jaya Prada now seems to be making amends to the spirit of Sridevi - a long overdue quasi- apology after years of disparaging Sridevi openly, be it in print, on TV, on talk shows in Telugu and/or in Hindi. You know we have the receipts in the archive here.
For the record, Sridevi and Jaya Prada were not friends or even friendly, but they worked together in several films in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu - often as caring and sacrificial sisters who gave up love or life for the other. Not a false note on screen, but on set, barely a word exchanged between them.
In the 1980s, Jaya Prada openly criticised Sridevi - while Jaya Prada's brother acted in a wildly unprofessional manner. Knowing that timid and shy Sridevi, who barely spoke to the press, would not have the gumption to retort in similar fashion, Jaya Prada had a field day making headlines by firing at Sridevi, often discrediting her looks, glamour, sex appeal, alleged affairs, films and flops.
As Sridevi fans, what we found odd was Jaya Prada had nominal box office clout to her credit but worked continuously. Jaya Prada advertised herself as a great actress when barely any awards went her way. Apart from the performances in Sanjog or Sargam, nothing else earth-shattering comes to mind when one reflects on this Andhra actress's career (albeit Jaya Prada had a fantastic Telugu portfolio with K. Vishwanath - but couldn't repeat the success in the Hindi belt).
In 2021, three years after the shocking death of Sridevi, Jaya Prada seems to be touring TV shows reclaiming her time with Sridevi in a far more flattering light.
You cannot be held hostage to the person you were in the past; so perhaps this is a more enlightened mature, older Jaya Prada, reflecting on her faulty ways and showing some form of remorse - especially in the wake of Sridevi's profoundly tragic passing. A recognition that she was being petty for no reason, holding a grudge for decades, long after the dust settled.
However, MP Jaya Prada needs to accept facts, her palimpsest is pure fiction, her past misdemeanors are written in tabloid and stone. They cannot be swept away by grand self-aggrandizing gestures on reality TV.
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