My grandmother told me a story of a beautiful mynah. She was very pretty, her brownish black plumage and her lovely contoured yellow eyes made her very beautiful and she was the only one of her kind in the land. She was famous and people would flock to see her. Then one day, she decided to travel to another land, where many more people lived. She flew north and west and reached the distant shores. The most popular birds there were the parrots, all green with red beaks, and they all looked beautiful, but alike. The mynah was noticed and appreciated. She was very different and everyone welcomed her in the new land. Yet, the mynah felt that the parrots were more beautiful than her and she persuaded a painter to paint her green with a red beak. Her velvet down was inked over, her lovely yellow eye lines greened and her beak turned red. She was a very beautiful parrot. She strutted across the land and people noticed her but gave her as much attention as they did to the other parrots. She had become one of them.
Audiences in south were fortunate to have watched and experienced and exceedingly pretty actor and a performer par excellence in the 70s. Her name was Sridevi and she elegantly glided over the world of glamour and art and held all in her sway. Some mind blowing roles and performances later, she had unquestionably established her sway over the south. These had not come easy, every accolade had been hard earned, every critical acclaim struggled for, but every plaudit and box office success deserved. A lot of these performances would be etched into the hard stone of great performances in Indian cinema. 16 Vayidinile, Moondram Pirai, Moondru Mudichu, Meendum Kokila, VazhveMaayan, Sigappu Rojakkal I could just go on and on. Some of these were not necessarily meaty roles, but fantastic performances. Confidence and verve personified. The pinnacle had been reached. More heights were to be scaled, but a change in horizon seemed a better choice. Sridevi the great actress moved on to Mumbai and Sridevi the glamour girl had made an appearance.
Of course there was great acting on view in Sridevi Part II [the Hindi avatar] Chaalbaaz, Lamhe, Chandni, Mr. Indiaher spontaneity and timing complemented the roles and the movie, and saw her scale peaks again. She won awards, she won accolades, and she won fans and lovers. She looked better with every passing year. For the first time a female superstar was born and she continued the trend of No. 1 heroines from the South..
But it was never the same. Something had changed and the earlier Sridevi was never ever in view. We loved her in her pre-Mumbai days and we love her still. But we would give an arm and a leg to have her 70s avatar back. Please play it again, Sri.
