Here’s a feature-style exploration of Sridevi’s on-screen relationships and romantic storylines, capturing her legendary presence in Indian cinema.
Years later, long after she had retired and returned, the public still spoke of her old romantic storylines. Film critics dissected the “Sridevi paradox”—how she could play the victim of love in one scene and its master in the next. Her image remained eternal: the girl who could drown you in a tear, then save you with a smile.
At a retrospective just months before her untimely passing, a young journalist asked her: “Of all the heroes you romanced on screen—Jeetendra, Anil, Kamal Haasan—who was your favorite love story?”
Sridevi paused. She thought of the mirror she used to hold as a girl, practicing expressions. She thought of the rain-soaked nights and the laughter in the vanity vans. She thought of the invisible lines between performance and truth.
She smiled—that knowing, devastating smile that launched a thousand ships.
“The one I never told,” she said. And the room fell silent, understanding that some images are more powerful than any real relationship, and some romantic storylines are best left unfinished, flickering forever on a cinema screen in the dark.
When she arrived in Hindi cinema with Himmatwala (1983), the industry thought they had found the perfect “village belle.” But Sridevi soon shattered that mold. Her romantic storylines became laboratories for a new kind of heroine: one who could be both the dream and the dreamer.
The Image of Unrequited Longing: Sadma (1983) remains the pinnacle. Her romance with Kamal Haasan’s character is not about candlelight dinners but about a child-woman’s trust. The image of her eating ice cream for the first time, or the devastating final shot where she doesn’t recognize her lover, redefined tragic romance. Here, Sridevi showed that the greatest romantic pain isn’t death—it is the loss of memory itself.
The Image of Assertive Desire: In Mr. India (1987), her romantic storyline with Anil Kapoor’s invisible man was a masterclass in physical comedy. She wasn’t just pining; she was investigating love. The song "Hawa Hawai" is not a seduction number aimed at the hero; it is a solo celebration of her own erotic energy. She is flirting with the camera, not the man.
The Image of the Supernatural Lover: Nagina (1986) and Sherni (1988) gave us the “vengeful lover” trope. As the shape-shifting Ichhadhari Naagin, her romance was not about domesticity but about primal obsession. The image of her dancing with live cobras while Rishi Kapoor watches in awe is iconic because it inverts the power dynamic. She protects the love; the man is merely the spectator.
To speak of Sridevi’s romantic storylines is not merely to list her co-stars. It is to trace the very evolution of desire, longing, and female agency in Indian cinema. She did not just act opposite heroes; she completed their romantic arcs while simultaneously subverting them. The images we hold of her—the rain-soaked ghagra in Mawali, the trembling lower lip in Chandni, the vengeful laughter of a woman possessed in Nagina—are not just stills. They are blueprints of modern love on screen.