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| Sridevi, her younger sister Sreelatha and their mother Rajeshwari |
As you'll see from the official Instagram of Sreelatha, the family names of the sisters are Ayappan Sreedevi and Ayappan Sreelatha. All other alleged names of Sridevi are false, speculation and misinformation. First and foremost the family from Sivakasi were Ayappans not Iyengers.
Sridevi's mother, Rajeshwari Reddy, is from Andhra Pradesh and her native land is Tirupathi. In fact, Sridevi's mother Rajeshwari's ancestral home is near Govindaraja Swamy temple in main Tirupathi.
Sridevi's father and family had a strong political and legal background. Sridevi's uncle, Ramasamy Naidu, elder brother of Sridevi's father, Ayyappa Naidu, won the MLA seat from Sivakasi in 1977 representing Janata Party. Following family tradition, Sridevi's father Ayyappa Naidu contested in the 1989 assembly election from Sivakasi on behalf of Congress. However, he lost. Sridevi famously campaigned for her father in 1989. She spoke in interviews that she didn't want her father to enter politics but their family encouraged him to do so. After his stunning loss in elections, Sridevi said for years that politics was not her cup of tea and she would NEVER enter politics despite being invited to join several--often opposing--political parties (R).
In an interview with Filmfare back in Dec 1992, she spoke about her father and uncle and the entire mess, said Sridevi, "We all tried to dissuade him [father Ayappan]. But his brother was in politics and wasn't well enough to contest from Sivakasi. My uncle requested him to contest on the Congress ticket. And of course, he was very upset when he didn't win. I did campaign for him an some other Congress candidates. But I was really scared of the crowds, I would give the same speech at all the rallies. Yes, I have got feelers to join politics but I know I just don't have the caliber to become a politician." That same year, Sridevi spoke to Cine Blitz and with good humour and self-reflection said, "Campaigning for my father (R) doesn’t make me a politician. I am the last person who should join politics. If I were ever elected, I’d bring the nation down. (Laughs) First of all, I don’t possess the knowledge or intelligence. Secondly, I don’t have the temperament at all. I am too shy and introverted. I get so scared when I have to even talk two words to the audiences at my shows. And frankly, what do I know in life besides acting?"
I've had to fact check this with the team of New York Times as all the Bollywood pages, Wikipedia, every social media and several blogs got it so horrendously wrong. At the time of her death, her legal name was Sridevi Kapoor; hence NYT ran with that and she was mononymously famous as Sridevi (a la "Cher" or "Madonna" or "Beyonce" or "Adele"!).
Sridevi was half Tamil and half Telugu; Sivakasi born (which is in Tamil Nadu), hence her fluency in both languages and ease in the lingua franca when she was working in "South" movies (a blanket statement that covered all states when each had a different language, style of film-making!).
If you see Sridevi's television interviews , she was most fluent and talkative only when in conversation in Tamil or Telugu. The hesitant vocal-fry when she spoke in English or Hinglish (note her Hindi interviews segue into English quickly) was an indication of her comfort level.
Circa 2013, I had (delusional) dreams of learning Tamil just to interview Sridevi and eventually work on an official biography--however, Sridevi very politely declined. Be it from Penguin India--via Shobhaa De (hiya!)--or SMCP Inc, of course I've been asked to do her Biography, but this blog more than suffices. No one's buying books these days. It's a sad era when there are more books than readers out there!
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| Young Maheshwari, Sridevi and Sreelatha with friends circa 1986 |
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| Young Sreelatha with her elder sister, superstar Sreedevi aka Sridevi |
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| Young Sreedevi, infant Sreelatha with the OG momager, Rajeshwari |
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