Rewriting Bollywood History: Facts Over Sentiments

The trouble with social media writers of Bollywood is the complete inaccuracy, falsehoods perpetuated and soon believed by many as the ineffable truth. No Himmatwala was not her first Hindi film, it wasn't even her second or third. Sridevi appeared in Rani Mera Naam as a child artist, in Julie in a supporting role, as a teen in Solva Sawan, and finally in her fourth Hindi film appearance, Sridevi appeared in the biggest hit of 1983, Himmatwala! 

And of course Judaai [February 28, 1997] wasn't her last film before her long break, it was Kaun Sachcha, Kaun Jhootha [April 11, 1997]. Then there was an unfortunate half-baked release of Meri Biwi Ka Jawab Nahin [July 2, 2004], the same year Sridevi's only sitcom Malini Iyer [January 19, 2004].was running on TV. Finally, we saw a fab return in English Vinglish [September 21, 2012] followed by Sridevi's last Tamil film was the unfortunate Puli [October 1, 2015]. Mom was her final film, the swansong released on July 7, 2017 and her final appearance she shot for was Zero, released posthumously on December 21, 2018. 

 

TBT: Sridevi wearing a green dress designed by first-cousin Maheshwari

Throwback to Dec 2014, Sridevi wore a dress designed by her first-cousin Maheshwari. There are still so many questions we have about Sridevi's surprisingly complicated family tree. There's always a random 'uncle' cropping up, and this brother Satish that comes in and out of the picture... 

So Maheswari is the daughter of Sreenivasan and Latha Ayyapan. Sreenivasan Ayyapan was Sridevi's uncle (father's brother), so technically they are first-cousins. Because of their age gap of 14 years, on occasion the media has called Sridevi Maheshwari's aunt - ipso facto the confusion (including ours!).  

Fact Check: Sridevi's filmography: 266 not 300 films!

So its a point of contention between hardcore Sridevi fans and... fact checkers! Without any qualifiers, a statement was released around the release of Mom that it was Sridevi's 300th film. Now, having worked with very strict editors - particularly the meticulous New York Times fact checkers - every figure and statement had to have verifiable evidence. Now when it comes to Indian film journalism - particularly for bloggers and sound bytes on television - what sounds good is better than what facts are.

Fans have listed unreleased films, incomplete films, dubbed ones (as opposed to entirely re-made films like say Sadma or Tohfa and so on) to amp up the number for... no valid reason. We've - and I'm adding other reasonable, moderate, thinking Bollywood insiders, as opposed to blind fanatics - drawn up the list and its about 266 films released in cinemas over Sridevi's prolific 50-year career.

Starting with this and a few more - we're launching a category called Fact Check. So look out for more.

Indian media, particularly film journalism and television journalism - is hardly a paragon of verisimilitude and virtue; its seemingly always alacrity over accuracy. There are of course, a few notable exceptions - am a mega fan of Palki Sharma Upadhyay and (occasionally) Barkha Dutt!

If anything came out during Sridevi's untimely and tragic passing, Indian television news is the absolute bottom-feeder in the hierarchy of journalistic standards, morals and ethics. Too many to list in the horrors they revealed when soooo many stars spoke out against the television trolls. How did some of the even get a job? How did they pass the interview process?! When did common man theory become socially accepted fact on TV?! Remember the so-called "Sridevi's uncle" who had a lot to say about Sridevi's demise from the middle of nowwhere? Uncle who?! And some rando "expert" from the street whose opinion suddenly became headline news?! Smell BS and switch the channel! 

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. 

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?"

Decades later in a rare televised interview with Vir Sanghvi, she reiterated the same, "Politics is not my cup of tea," was her mantra.  

Can other actors turned politicians say the same with such humility?

The film journalists of early days Bombay--pre Mumbai--did zero fact checking and got the names of Hema Malini (who was/is an Iyengar) muddled with Sridevi's lineage. Hence the viral spread of misinformation on Sridevi's name. No, Sridevi WAS NOT named 'Shree Amma Iyengar", this is pure fallacy. Sridevi was born (and signed all her autographs as) A. Sreedevi, aka Ayyappa Sreedevi. 

I've had to fact check this with the team of New York Times as all the Bollywood pages, Wikipedia, every unverified social media account 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! 

Young Maheshwari, Sridevi and Sreelatha with friends circa 1986

Young Sreelatha with her elder sister, superstar Sreedevi aka Sridevi 

Sridevi at Filmfare Awards with her sister Sreelatha

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. 

TBT: The 1990 nominees: The corrected list

Misinformation and inaccurate reports go viral quickly online as there are no fact checkers or editors. Here's where our two cents come in.

This image is trending online as the Best Actress nominees and the image is wrong. Back in 1990 the nominees were; 

• Madhuri Dixit Award as Madhu Mehra in Dil
• Hema Malini as Taku in Rihaee
• Juhi Chawla as Shanti in Pratibandh
• Meenakshi Seshadri as Meena S. Verma in Jurm

Sridevi wasn't nominated that year and the image here is from Naaka Bandi. 

Fact Check: Sridevi as a child artist? NO! Fake caption floating online

Above left IS Sridevi as a child artist. Above right is NOT Sridevi as a child artist.

The image of Vyjanthimala with a young dancer for a stage show has been falsely circulating online - a mosh-pit of questionable and unverified information - as "rare pic of Sridevi"!

Well, Sridevi was never a stage dancer, she did not do any stage shows as a child, she only did Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu films as a child. It is another young dancer as pointed out by veteran journalists in the South. 

#TBT: Sridevi and Boney Kapoor at the launch of Hum Aapke Dil Mein Rehte Hain (1999)

We all know that stupidity is rife online and so is inaccurate information. These are not images of Sridevi and Boney Kapoor at their wedding - as labelled on social media (Instagram specifically) and on other blogs and ill-informed sites.

These are images of Sridevi and Boney Kapoor at the prayers before the launch of Anil Kapoor and Kajol starrer Hum Aapke Dil Mein Rehte Hain (1999), which was produced by Boney Kapoor. Sridevi was there for the ample support of her producer husband.

We are officially starting a category called #FactCheck cause the ill-begotten bytes on Sridevi are getting on our last nerves.

More in the archive here.

Has Sridevi really done 300 films? And what's in a name?

So there are a multitude of reasons of why we've been maintaining this blog - and an earlier version of it - for the past two decades. To have an archive of Sridevi images, interviews, quotes... well, anything really in the orbit of the luminous Indian actress.

We are still grieving her loss... and her absence in the world has emboldened our drive to keep her alive online, one jpeg and byte at a time.

During the promotions of the film Mom, the Indian media had picked up this lofty notion that Sridevi had appeared in 300 Indian films.

Immediately our brows perked up in doubt. Hmm. 300 films... It seemed plausible; the actress had worked for fifty years in five different Indian languages, but without fact-checking (a ludicrous notion in the age of alacrity over accuracy!) for even a second, the media went berserk over that headline-friendly number.

300 films makes a nice round number and makes for a splashy headline - but not an infallible one.

We just did a quick wiki search and here's what we've tabulated so far. Sridevi has appeared in...

Tamil Films 
72

Malayalam 
25

Kannada 
6

Telugu 
91

Hindi 
72

Total:
266

If anyone can find us the remaining 34, we'd greatly appreciate it...!

Unreleased films DO NOT COUNT. Incomplete films DO NOT COUNT! As much as we'd like to include Garajna or Zameen and the like - we only have speculative information on how much of those movies were made but the fact is, they never saw the light of day and probably never will -  so what's the point of including them?!

For the record Mom was not her 300th film, but her 266th* - and even that we are yet to verify. 

This is not to undercut any of Sridevi's vast achievements but to perforate the mythic bubbles around Sridevi. Indian film journalists who do the absolute bare minimum - if even any - research and background check when it comes to movies and movie stars before hitting 'publish'. 

There are so many examples online of faulty film journalism that its too exhausting to list. From the misrepresentation of Sridevi's name - Shree Amma Iyenger? Really? Where did that come from?! - to stating that Sridevi won Filmfare awards for Moondram Pirai / Sadma. No she didn't. She deserved to win - obviously - but was denied the honours those years.

This blog is constantly updated, edited and more importantly corrected on a near-daily, if not weekly basis.

The truth matters. Even when it comes to the world of make-believe.