Rare pics: Family photos of Sridevi with her sister, mother, her children, her niece...

Sridevi, her younger sister Sreelatha
and their mother Rajeshwari

All in the family; rare pics we found on social media of Sridevi with her family; be it rare pics with her only sister Sreelatha, fun pics of Sridevi with her mother and others. 

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. The idiot film journalists of early days Mumbai did zero fact checking and got the names of Hema Malini (who was/is an Iyengar) muddled with Sridevi's. Hence the viral spread of misinformation on Sridevi's name. No, she was not named 'Shree Amma Iyengar", this is pure fallacy. 

I've had to fact check this with the team of New York Times as all the Bollywood pages and blogs got it so horrendously wrong. At the time of her death, her legal name was Sridevi Kapoor; hence they 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 Telegu; 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. 

Young Maheshwari, Sridevi and Sreelatha with friends circa 1986

Young Sreelatha with her elder sister, superstar Sreedevi aka Sridevi 

Young Sreedevi, infant Sreelatha with the OG momager, Rajeshwari 

Above: Sridevi with her beloved mother Ayappan Rajeshwari

Below: Sridevi with her eldest daughter Janhvi Kapoor and niece/cousin Maheshwari

Above: Sridevi's only sister Sreelatha flanked by Khushi Kapoor and Janhvi Kapoor. Girl on the far left is Sreelatha's daughter Asmitha Sanjay. 

• Dozens of pics of Sridevi with her mother Rajeshwari here.
• Innumerable images of Sridevi with her sister Sreelatha here.
• Rare images of Sridevi with her beloved father, the famed lawyer Ayyappan here.