The (Sri) Vidya I knew
RANEE KUMAR
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She did not and could not open up easily to `anyone' and that was the only weakness in her otherwise lovely disposition that ruined her happiness.
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She was the typical artiste — emotional, easily hurt, not ambitious in the monetary sense yet loved to make a name.
ANGELIC Srividya, very simple person who never behaved like a film star.
I did not have the foggiest notion that my teenage dream of meeting with my favourite star would be realised a decade later and that too in the most unforeseen turn of events. I was requested to play host to the famous M.L. Vasantha Kumari during one of her music concerts as there was no decent accommodation to be provided in that district. She stayed as a guest at my place and in the course of our conversation I expressed my open admiration for her daughter Srividya who by then had become a star of consequence in the Malayalam film industry.
Next, to my pleasant surprise, Srividya rang up from Chennai, introducing herself and conveying her gratitude on behalf of her mother. We exchanged a lot of personal details about each other and found that we shared common interests too. That struck a friendship and she would ring me up as frequently as she could when out of her shooting schedules and we'd keep talking about everything under the sun. She expressed a desire to see me in person and being close to Chennai then, I undertook a trip to please her and of course myself. By then, she no longer was the distant film star of my dreams. She was just Vidya, my new friend.
I recollect that day, she had just arrived from London by the evening flight and we fixed up an unearthly hour to meet each other for the first time, at her home in Kodambakkam. She was visibly happy to meet me as she held my hand and pulled me towards a `takth' welcoming me and introducing me to her husband George (then).
Sans any make-up whatsoever and a freshly washed look about her, lustrous curly hair flowing like a halo behind a pretty face, Vidya looked angelic. Her soft looks from her dove-like eyes betrayed her equally unassuming nature. She never behaved or even felt like a film star. Nor was she down-to-earth. She was the typical artiste — emotional, easily hurt, not ambitious in the monetary sense yet loved to make a name. She was both in admiration and awe of her famous mother MLV.
Vidya gifted me with a videocassette of her film Adamille Vairialle (Adam's rib) when I mentioned that it was a film for all times. I had in turn gifted her a pearl ring as she liked pearls. Later, in the innumerable telephone conversations we had, she'd always mention that she could not take off the ring from her finger as it brought her luck. In fact she attributed her luck in being "relieved of the burden of having to suffer an unhappy and torturous" domestic life to quote her own words in a letter. The relief didn't seem to usher in happiness as she went into hibernation from all her `close' friends (out of the film circuit) having to start from scratch to keep herself afloat for a few years after her divorce came through.
It was at this juncture that I could not intrude into her privacy knowing full well that the introvert in her had surfaced in times of adversity. She did not and could not open up easily to `anyone' and that was the only weakness in her otherwise lovely disposition that ruined her happiness! Her disease and death were devastating to say the least.
There is a `wise' saying — some persons are lucky in their death. The state honours with which Srividya was bid goodbye by her innumerable admirers perhaps underlines the truth of this adage.
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