Inspirations (18 of 25) – The late actress Srividya

At a recent Toastmasters Speaking Contest, I was asked by a fellow Toastmaster as to what inspires me the most.  I mentioned to him that it was people that demonstrated grace and dignity during times of adversity.  The people that I was thinking of in real life were the likes of Sheena Iyengar and the late Randy Pausch who battled health-related setbacks (loss of vision in Iyengar’s case and terminal cancer in Pausch’s case) to do some stellar, inspirational work in their own ways.  But outside of non-fiction, a huge source of motivation for me has been the movies.  I think that it takes a tremendous amount of skill for a creator to bring to life a story in a two-dimensional medium with three-dimensional characters that leap out of the screen directly into our consciousness.  If my earlier write-up on writer-director Vasanth was an example of a creator whose tales touched, moved and inspired me, my piece on Kamal Hassan was essentially a tribute to an artiste who could bring to life a character with amazing nuances and shades.  Actress Srividya, who unfortunately succumbed to cancer in 2006, falls in the latter camp as a performer who, with her eyes, voice and expressions, did more than full justice to the characters that she was entrusted with portraying on screen.  As trite as it may sound, she became those characters on a lot of occasions.

With due respect to the people that actually wrote her characters and the directors that helped shape her performances, I always found Srividya to be an actor who could make any character of hers completely grounded and realistic.  Despite having worked with a wide range of directors with varied tastes and qualities, Srividya was an amazingly consistent and reliable performer.  The reason she goes from being just an actor that I liked to an actor that I found “inspiring” was the way she portrayed pain on screen.  My simple reasoning is that for one to be moved or motivated by something that is inherently unreal - as cinema is- the performer has to behave as though the events (on screen) were happening right next to us or make us think of a person or event from our real lives.  Because good cinema has the power to make us think about the finer aspects of relationships and the meaningful ineffables of life such as sacrifice and selflessness.  And the way Srividya played her roles such as a pampering grandmother, stern-but-well-meaning mother, a doting spouse or a loving sister, there was no way you could not think of the women in your life and be respectful of their feelings, be thankful for their love, be acknowledging of their sacrifices and be sensitive to their pain.

From her rich and varied oeuvre, if I were to pick a half-a-dozen of her roles that I found to be the most unforgettable, it has to be “Aboorva RaagangaL”, “Aboorva SahodharargaL”, “Keladi Kanmani”, “Nee Paathi Naan Paathi”, “Kaadhaluku Mariyaadhai” and Suhasini’s Penn (a telefilm where she played Revathi’s mom).  As I look back at these movies, her screen time varied from probably 10 minutes to 100 minutes.  But the onscreen time that she needed in order to make an impact was never a significant factor because her eyes sometimes needed just a matter of seconds to arrest you.  The aforementioned "Penn" is a fine example.  In the course of a 25-min telefilm (superbly written by Suhasini), Srividya brought to life a Mom from her 30s to her 50s and showed how a Mom's feelings towards her daughter could change as they both age.  Given the number of times that I have watched this, I have never failed to tear up in the climactic sequence.  But more importantly, I have always spared a moment to think of how, in an argument, one's near and dear might mean well but their deep love for us might actually prevent them from expressing things in a saccharine sweet fashion that might hold momentary appeal.  Watch this video to see why I hold her in such high regard:

Another reason why I wanted to salute Srividya was because she thrived in an environment that really didn’t carve a niche market for older actors the way Hollywood does.  The fact that a Robert De Niro (aged 72) or a Meryl Streep (66) are able to get plum roles and the fact that a Revathy or a Srividya rarely got meaty roles beyond a certain age is as stark a contrast as you will ever find.  There was absolutely nothing lacking in talent in either of these Indian actors.  It is just that filmmakers (with rare exceptions like Balu Mahendra’s “Sandhya Raagam”) or maybe even the audience could not care less about watching seasoned thespians in meaningful lead roles and would rather watch ditzy girls from Mumbai prance around in skimpy costumes.  It is a testament to Srividya’s talent that she made a lasting impression despite being the odds stacked against her favor. 

From what I have read about Srividya, I also gather that her personal life left her many a scar, both physical and emotional.  Maybe in the movies she found an outlet to portray all the pain that she experienced as a person.  In one of those tragic ironies of life, it was probably her anguish and suffering that metamorphosed to something, even if on celluloid, that could actually make somebody a little more sensitive towards the pain and sensitivities of others.