Sridevi, the first lady super star of Indian cinema is one diva who can never be forgotten from the lexicon of India’s film industry. Although she is raised in Chennai, her roots are from Tirupati through her Telugu mother. Her Tamil father was a prominent lawyer in Chennai and she balanced both Tamil and Telugu films in her career.
Although performance wise she had stellar roles in Tamil, her acceptability as a glamorous star only started with Telugu films and she always acknowledged it. She had done around 300 films and most of her movies were Telugu in the list. However, the last straight Telugu movie was SP Parashuram way back in 1994. In her second innings, it is widely believed that her husband Boney’s high demands cost her Bahubali project, which landed in Ramya Krishna’s kitty.
After she won Padmashri, her husband organized parties for her in Mumbai and Chennai, but not Hyderabad. She did a comeback movie in Tamil, Puli but she didn’t commit to any Telugu film. Even her prayer meet post death was held in Mumbai and Chennai but not Hyderabad. Although Boney is close to Telugu bigwigs since he has remade many films from Telugu into Hindi, somehow, he didn’t get Sridevi closer to Tollywood again.
Now the same seems to be the case with daughter Jhanvi. Although officially father and daughter say she is happy to do a Telugu film if the script is good, going by the quality of Bollywood films she is doing and their commercial result, one wonders her decision making so far at least. In fact, many directors will go to any length to mark the Telugu launch of Sridevi’s daughter.
Both father and daughter are only being diplomatic about it and not committing anything. Except for Tirumala visits and Maheshwari by the side, Jhanvi seems to be losing any connection with her mom’s Telugu side. After going to Mumbai, Sridevi hardly had time for her relatives in Tirupathi compared to how they were maintaining good contacts with her when Sridevi’s mom was alive and the family was based in Chennai.
Now, more or less there seems to be no connection with her mom’s personal or professional legacy with Telugu land. Let’s hope Jhanvi take her mom’s stardom in Telugu states into account and lives up to her legacy by expressing good interest and doing some good work here too.
