Director Gauri Shinde didn’t have to look too far from her home to create Sridevi’s timeless character Shashi Godbole in English Vinglish.
In an interview with this writer during the release of English Vinglish Gauri confessed, “I’ve seen it happen in my own home. My mother inspired this story. She is a housewife and an entrepreneur-she has a very successful spices business-and she felt if she knew the English language, there are so many more things she could have done with her life. There was no reason for her to feel inferior because of her poor grasp of English. But we were also responsible. We made fun of her. We tend to be insensitive in our day-to-day dealings with family and even colleagues. It isn’t restricted to women only. To me, a wife and mother’s struggle to achieve a linguistic dignity in a society governed by Colonial rules of verbal communication, seemed important.”
Gauri admitted to being influenced by all that she had absorbed in cinema and life during her growing years. “I loved that era in the 1980s of Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil. Such great progressive scripts were written. Somewhere I think our cinema lost that search for identity that made films like Arth and Bhumika so memorable. Of course good films are happening today also. But not enough.”
About Sridevi Gauri confessed to being a complete fan. “It didn’t matter which film she was in. She always made the character her own. I am totally addicted to Sridevi. How will I work with any other actress now? I am completely spoilt in my first film by her caliber as a human being and an actress. How will I get all of this in my future films? I want to work with her for the rest of my life.”
Gauri spoke in the same interview in 2014 of Sridevi’s deep-focussed dedication to her role when they shot for months in the US. “Of course she’d make that call home during breaks but once she was back, she was fully there. Don’t forget women make magnificent multi-taskers. She was too committed to her character to cheat on it. When she was on camera, she was completely there. She was a complete director’s actor. And she made it all look easy on camera. Only a great artiste can bring that level of fluency to her performance.”
