With Love, From Pakistan: How Sridevi Saved Me From Political Disenchantment

It was serendipitous for Sridevi’s magnum opus 'Chandni' to overlap with Benazir Bhutto's arrival in our politics.

"In the spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love”; and as Phalgun days inch towards Holi, Sridevi is all Hindi cinema disciples like us can think of. For in 2018, just a week before Holi, the mood around us turned somber as news of Sridevi’s death made its way to our homes. As a sign of respect to the beloved actor, many a household—filmy and non-filmy alike canceled their Holi celebrations.

And so it is the time of the year this week when Sridevi devotees go down the rabbit hole of her associations—scouring social media and search engines for clips from her films, the song compilations, and interviews with the diva. 

If the linguistic roots of the term muhajir —the uprooted, linger in the Urdu poet’s reference to a night of hijr e firaq (the lover’s absence and a night of lament for the beloved), then we are all in a state of permanent exile from our beloved Sridevi.