From 1989 onwards, she went on to do a series of films in which she plays dual roles, starting with Guru, Chaalbaaz, Naaka Bandi*, etcetera. On a parallel note, we also note the entry of younger sirens like Madhuri Dixit, Karisma Kapoor and Aishwarya Rai who were going to offer some stiff competition in this space.
Yet, after a hiatus of almost 14 years, she comes to work with an intelligent director in Gauri Shinde. English Vinglish may have come across as a typical example of ‘good cinema’ harking back to the 70s, where the communication of a main message was vital to its existence. Playing the role of Shashi Godbole, one can feel Sridevi yearning to go back to those Tamil films where filmmakers provided the space and courage to break out of a formula and close in on the immediate reality affecting us on a daily basis. Gauri’s bold script about a conventional housewife going to a ‘Speak Better English’ tutorial accommodates a delicately crafted amorous relationship between Shashi and her classmate, Laurent, a French chef. And there is a moment in the film, when she asserts her choice to be content with her ‘conventional’ family, where one can discover the consummate artist inside Sridevi.
What must it have been like for a girl like Sridevi, born in Sivakasi, where the country’s matchsticks are produced to light up kerosene stoves and bidis, to come and seek a career in film acting? Unlike her co-star Kamal Haasan, she was not fortunate enough to come from a prominent and well-educated family that could provide valuable emotional support. She proved that with the right attitude and a willingness to work hard, she could endeavor to become a woman of substance.
Between 1976 and 1982, she acted in over 120 films—15 films a year in four different languages—before she faced Jeetendra to do Himmatwala, the Hindi film that would place her in the Hindi cinema orbit. Between the age of 14 and 20, a lower-middle-class girl virtually wades through a swamp of 120 films for which she had to act, dance, fight and dub her own voice, since she was proficient in all four southern languages. I can also vouch for the fact that in several cases, she must have never received the remuneration she must have been promised. Those were the days when no contracts were signed. You just worked on trust, hope and fresh air. Sridevi made it possible to move all the way up with just sheer guts, raw nerves and a storehouse of natural acting talent.
Director Balu Mahendra would often tell me: “If there was one thing that was a complete luxury during those days of hectic filmmaking, it was a good night’s sleep.”
May Sridevi rest in peace.
Excerpt from Open Magazine: Read the entire article here
* Sridevi did not have a double role in Naaka Bandi. Think the writer meant Khuda Gawah and/or Lamhe
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