Google Doodle today celebrates actress Sridevi’s 60th birthday. The illustration was designed by Mumbai-based artist Bhumika Mukherjee.
Born in 1963 in Tamil Nadu, Sridevi was barely four years old when she made her debut with Thunaivan, where she played a cameo as Lord Muruga. She faced the camera as a child artiste in movies like Kandan Karunai , Adi Parasakthi and Nam Naadu among others.
As a child, she shared the screen with stalwarts of those times like M. G. Ramachandran and Jayalalithaa. The earliest memory of Sridevi might be one of her playing Raja, a boy with a curious expression listening in as MGR sings ‘Nalla perai vaanga vendum pillaigale’.
Another everlasting image of Sridevi is that of her an impish, young girl running around in two pigtails in Babu , where she also acted alongside Sivaji Ganesan. In Adi Parashakti , she essayed the role of Lord Muruga again, while Jayalalithaa played the lead role of Goddess Sakthi. When Jayalalithaa passed away, Sridevi had tweeted an iconic picture of them together, from the movie.
Nothing defined the 70s better than the Rajini-Kamal-Sridevi troika. The film Moondru Mudichu introduced a 13-year-old Sridevi as a leading lady in Tamil cinema. The film starred director K. Balachander’s protégés Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan and went on to become a path-breaking film.
The trio would share screen space in 16 Vayadhinile , with Rajinikanth playing villain yet again. Sridevi’s role as Mayil, a demure village belle with hidden aspirations, earned her many accolades, and the film went on to become a critically acclaimed hit.
Her love for cinema, encouraged her to learn all south Indian languages and she broke barriers and went on to do movies in other languages too, including Hindi. In Bollywood, she gave massive hits like: Mitwa, Tu Mujhe Suna, Aa Meri Jaan and Aaj Abho Yahin.
Her last movie was Mom that hit the screens in 2017
The actress passed away on February 24, 2018, after she drowned in her own bathtub on losing consciousness at a hotel in Dubai.
