Remembering Sridevi: Feb 24: A Tribute.

On the evening of February 24, 2018, at the age of 54 years, Indian actress Sridevi passed at the Jumeirah Emirates Towers in Dubai. She died of accidental drowning that fateful night and forever closed a rich chapter of Indian cinematic history so abruptly, innumerable students of cinema have been left reeling in shock. 

Fresh off the critical and box-office success of, what became her final film, Mom (2017), the Indian thespian was in talks with her favourite female director on a potential project, she (and her team) had allegedly met with the-then head of Netflix India, directors of note had penned film proposals, filmmakers young and old were conjuring projects that could only have taken flight with the winged aid of this actor par excellence, bolstered by the star wattage of her esteem and caliber. She wasn't a yesteryear star of faded aura or glory, but shining brightly, incandescent with a preternatural ability to perform and share her inner light with the world with such grace and tremendous dignity. 

Alas, alas, alas, destiny played a different cruel hand, and took the angel-faced cherub back to her final abode. 

We heard the news in our part of the world mid Feb 25, seven years ago. However, we didn't believe it until much later, when the honourable Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi himself, took to social media to express his condolences on the passing of a national treasure, one of the greats in the Indian pantheon of artistes.  

How do we explain Sridevi to a foreigner or alien unfamiliar with her vast repertoire? A child star who segued into every stage of celebrity (without falling into its inevitable trappings) with ease. She was a teen actor, pinup, leading lady and legend in a span of two decades. A workhorse ("an acting machine" as the Bhatt brothers said of her), her drive and work ethic has no parallels in the East or West. 

She elevated herself from ingenue to legend with such unfathomable skill and preternatural ability. She was an actor, she was a star, she was a dancer, she was a phenomena; to many of us, she was a moving image that suddenly lay still; the seismic shock reverberated across the nation and for a dark day, the nation stood still, watching her funeral procession and final journey one last time. 

As editors and publishers wrote on social media, we will never see another Sridevi again. 

It has been years now and it is still difficult to fathom the depth of this eternal loss. The impotent rage of the conspiracy theorists, the staggering incompetence of the hashtag #justiceforSridevi (you want to sue who? Bramha?!), these are all permutations of grief that have reared itself in ugly, thoughtless heads. Looking for blame and passing it on, like a virus that corrodes the mind of all logic and rationale. When the dust settles, and the harsh reality seeps through, all the stages of grief will harpoon through the erudite and the ignorant, in equal, eventual measure; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. 

Born Ayappan Sreedevi, she left Sridevi Kapoor, uniting the north, south, east and west in such inexplicable grief. 

How gracefully she lived, how quietly she left. How indelible her memory is. 

Sridevi proved she was both Anju and Manju back in 1989. In 2018, we bore witness that she was indeed mortal and yet, eternal... 

Ayappan Sreedevi: 1963 - 2018