The tragic death of Sridevi has prompted an outpouring on Indian social media over the pressures on the industry's leading women and the murkiness behind their success.
It has also exposed the plight of many hopefuls who pursue a path to Mumbai with dreams of making it big in Bollywood.
The burden to defy age and look youthful and the haste to hide ugly scandals that embody campaigns such as #MeToo are not the issues of Hollywood alone.
Sridevi was called "Thunder Thighs" by the Bollywood press. For an entertainer who could speak fluently in five Indian languages, she was also mocked for her lack of English-speaking skills by the industry's glossy magazines.
Her death has also led to a lot of speculation about the effects of repeated cosmetic surgeries and the pressure on stars to look youthful.
Her husband was in their hotel suite at the time, and knocked then forced open the door to see the actor ‘lying motionless in a bathtub full of water’, according to the Khaleej Times. ‘He tried to revive her and when he could not, he called a friend of his. After that, he informed the police at 9pm,’ the report says, quoting a source. The death was confirmed by Sridevi’s brother-in-law, actor Sanjay Kapoor, who told IANS: ‘Yes, it is true.’ She was 54 at the time of her death. Sridevi was born Shree Amma Yanger Ayyapan in Tamil Nadu, a south Indian state, and she began acting at the tender age of four.
Sridevi married film producer husband Boney Kapoor, 62, in 1996, and they had two daughters together, before Sridevi returned to film in 2012’s English Vinglish and most recently in 2017 movie Mom. The actress was given the Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest civilian awards, for her services to the film industry in 2013. So influential was Sridevi that the Indian Prime Minister has released a statement about her death.
Sridevi’s body was driven in on the back of a truck covered in flowers in an open glass casket and left the Celebration Sports Club in Lokhandwala, Mumbai, shortly after 2pm. The state honoured the actress, draping her body in the Tricolour, and a gun salute was given before the cremation. Her husband Boney Kapoor, Mohit Marwah and Arjun Kapoor were spotted on the hearse traveling to the crematorium.