“Chandni… O Meri Chandni...” Sridevi's high-pitched laughter, interspersed with the trilling la la la la's and the extravagant admissions of love in the title song of Yash Chopra's Chandni have shadowed me, for as long as I can remember.
Released the year I was born, the 1989 hit inspired my slightly dramatic grandmother to name her moon-faced baby granddaughter Chandni, and it was from then on that I was left with an innocent, inadvertent connection to the country's ‘first female superstar'. And perhaps it did subconsciously inspire a dramatic side—there's lost video footage of a toddler Chandni, with a side-ponytail and a flower in her hair, strumming a plastic guitar to the strains of ‘Takdeer Bana De'. But it wasn't me imitating Geeta Dutt and her rendition of ‘Tadbeer se Bigdi Hui' from Baazi.
Instead, it was the medley from another Yash Chopra hit—Lamhe (1991), where a young Sridevi attempted to serenade a much older, and grumpier Anil Kapoor that appealed to my inner drama queen. A 28-year old Sridevi stepped effortlessly into the shoes of legendary leading ladies, batting her eyelids as she played a coy Nargis in Shree 420's ‘Pyar Hua Ikrar Hua' to channeling her best Dimple Kapadia and her playful moves from Bobby's ‘Hum Tum Ek Kamre Mein Band Hon'. Perhaps the easiest, most beautiful reflection of her acting range and comedic talents, the medley showcased the young actor's versatility. And while she began as a child actor in a Tamil film at the age of four, it was her choices as a grown-up in Bollywood that cemented her superstar status.
She debuted in Bollywood with Solva Sawan (1979) and found fame with Himmatwala (1983). But it was her range—from playing the alluring Chandni to the double roles of restrained older woman and young girl falling in love with an older man in the path-breaking Lamhe, to her Lois Lane-like fearlessness in Mr India (1987) and the vengeful naagin in Nagina (1986)—that truly displayed her ever-growing acting (and dancing) prowess.
And while she took a break to raise her daughters, her ‘comeback' revealed the same old confident and restrained superstar—English Vinglish was funny, poignant and a visual delight, reminding viewers that Sridevi never really left. With Mom, she cemented her return, and will be seen playing herself in a cameo in Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Zero, releasing December this year. Sadly, for her legions of fans, that will be the private and always impeccably-turned-out actor's swan song.
While Jolly Mukherjee's Chandni used to be an easy joke to make fun of me and my name, a walk down memory lane with Sridevi and her legacy reminds me that there could have been worse things to be compared with. And there's no other Chandni I'd rather have a life-long connection with.
To Sridevi, who went far too soon:
Ye lamhe ye pal hum, barson yaad karenge,
Ye mausam chale gae to, hum fariyad karenge,
Barson yaad karenge, barson yaad karenge
