India bids farewell to B’wood icon Sridevi – Thousands pay respects
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MUMBAI, Feb 28, (Agencies): Thousands of heartbroken fans and Bollywood actors paid their final respects to Indian superstar Sridevi Kapoor Wednesday following her shock death from accidental drowning in a Dubai hotel bathtub aged just 54.
Huge crowds of mourners — some carrying roses, others holding photos of the late actress — lined Mumbai’s streets to see their beloved idol embark on her last journey.
At one point police had to use batons to force back those who had not been able to get into the hall where her body was laid out, wrapped in the Indian flag.
“It’s a shock to believe that she is no more. We want to pay her one last visit today and thank her for all her wonderful performances,” 32-year-old teacher Nandini Rao told AFP as she queued at the condolence event.
After a public service, Sridevi’s funeral cortege made its way slowly to a crematorium where her family were to say their final goodbyes.
Bollywood stars, including actresses Aishwarya Rai and Kajol, were among the mourners at the Celebration Sports Club in the Andheri West area of Mumbai — the home of the Hindi film industry.
Prayers
Several tearful fans chanted prayers as Sridevi’s body was brought the short distance from her home to the club at 9:00 am (0330 GMT).
“I’m an avid Sridevi fan. I loved her smiling personality. She had such a commanding presence in the Indian film industry. Her death was so sudden and I feel terrible,” 45-year-old Kuldeep Singh told AFP.
Heavy security lined the streets to control the crowds, which included people who had travelled hundreds of kilometres to be there.
Her funeral car, decked in flowers, left the ground around 02:00 pm. She will be cremated at a private Hindu ceremony later on Wednesday.
Sridevi was considered to be one of the most influential Bollywood actresses of all time and her sudden death at the weekend sparked an outpouring of grief in India.
Tributes poured in from fans and fellow actors as well as Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The star of hit films such as “Chandni” and “Mr India” drowned in her bathtub after losing consciousness late Saturday in a hotel in Dubai, where she was attending a wedding.
Police in the emirate said a post-mortem examination found that she had drowned after losing consciousness. On Tuesday they ruled out any foul play and released the body to Sridevi’s family.
It arrived in Mumbai on a private jet on Tuesday evening, accompanied by her husband, film producer Boney Kapoor, and her stepson, actor Arjun Kapoor.
Sridevi, born Shree Amma Yanger Ayappan in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, appeared in around 300 films and was awarded the Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian award, for services to the movie industry.
She made her acting debut at the age of four and her career spanned more than four decades.
Sridevi worked in India’s regional Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam-language films before making her Bollywood debut in 1979.
She became a national sensation with a string of blockbuster films including “Mawali” (“Scoundrel”) and “Tohfa” (“Gift”).
Sridevi took a 15-year break from the silver screen after marrying Kapoor but returned in the 2012 hit comedy-drama “English Vinglish”. Her most recent film was last year’s “Mom”.
Sridevi was set to see Jhanvi, the eldest of her two daughters, make her Bollywood debut in a movie scheduled for release later this year.
Away from the cameras’ flash and the eyes of her millions of fans in India, the actress Sridevi’s body made its way to a simple mortuary in the United Arab Emirates, where one man helped sign out her remains to return home.
Listed only as “ASHRAF” on the official paperwork in Dubai is Ashraf “Sherry” Thamarassery, a 44-year-old Indian from Kerala who has become a ferryman of sorts for those who die here in the United Arab Emirates.
From indebted laborers to the moneyed elite, Thamarassery has helped repatriate 4,700 bodies to 38 countries across the world. He views it as a noble responsibility in this desert sheikhdom that draws so many far from their homes, chief among them his compatriots.
Process
“For them, you or me, it’s all the same and everyone is equal. If someone dies in their room, they will take them to the hospital and then to be checked at the police mortuary,” Thamarassery told The Associated Press in an interview late Tuesday night. “It’s the same process, whether Dubai or Sharjah or any emirate. … Whether you’re poor or rich, it doesn’t matter.”
Sherry offered shrugs when talking about Sridevi, saying he helped repatriate five other bodies Tuesday including the famed Bollywood star. But it’s hard to overstate the power Sridevi had over the imagination of many in India.
Starting out as a 4-year-old child star in south Indian regional movies, she later became known for her impeccable comic timing as well as her dancing skills — a serious asset in a country where song-and-dance melodramas are a movie staple. She appeared in hundreds of films, perhaps most known for her song-and-dance “Hawa Hawai” routine in the 1987 film “Mr. India,” in which she joyfully prances around in an almost-elastic set of whirls, twirls and silly faces. She smashed into the male-dominated movie industry to become her own star.
The 54-year-old Sridevi, only known by one name, which means “Goddess” in Hindi, died Feb 24 in Dubai while in the UAE for a wedding. Police and prosecutors say she drowned in a hotel bathtub after losing consciousness, calling her death accidental. Police officials also have said the actress had alcohol in her system at the time of her drowning.
News of her death dominated India’s newspapers and many television networks, ranging from the restrained to the lurid. One TV station aired a segment showing a reporter talking about her death while laying in a bathtub, while others had computer-generated graphics imagine the scene. Many newspapers chose not to mention the alcohol reports while a hashtag LetHerRestInPeace emerged on social media.
While Indian officials quickly canceled her passport and prepared the other documents, Thamarassery said a needed police clearance slowed Sridevi’s repatriation. He received hundreds of calls from journalists, officials and others in the interim.
When the clearance came, he traveled to a simple government-run mortuary in a dusty neighborhood of squat, square buildings that house some of Dubai’s immense population of foreign workers, many of whom come from South Asia.
There, officials embalmed her corpse as Thamarassery handled paperwork for her and three others. Curious Indian laborers spoke softly among themselves about the actress while standing outside of the mortuary. An ambulance then carried her body to a private jet reportedly sent by an Indian billionaire to take her home to Mumbai to be cremated.
By Tuesday night, Thamarassery returned home to the apartment he shares with his wife and daughter in Ajman, a small, dusty emirate in the UAE that serves as a bedroom community to skyscraper-studded Dubai some 35 kilometers (20 miles) to the southwest. There, Thamarassery runs a mechanics shop but focuses largely on his philanthropic efforts.
Shelf upon shelf in his home bears honors and awards. A framed picture hangs on the wall showing him meeting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
I do this “to earn blessings, but also when someone dies here, people don’t know how to manage the repatriation procedures,” he said. “That’s why I do it.”
All the while, his phone never stopped ringing, some of them undoubtedly new calls for his help.
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