Random thoughts

Some people achieve immortality after their death. Their lives, while not insignificant during their lifetime, achieve a certain aura posthumously. Their flaws forgotten and forgiven, only their achievements and talents are celebrated. But some are luckier(?) still. They are taken away before they have had the chance to mess up. Their innocence and purity still intact, they leave an indelible mark on people that stays unblemished way after they are gone.

Smita Patil was one such soul. Immensely talented, breathtakingly beautiful and widely popular she was everything one wanted in a Hindi film actor. She would light up the screen every time she came on it. From a glamorous siren to a village belle she covered the whole spectrum. She beautifully balanced the art house and commercial cinema divide. She was undoubtedly one of the best actresses we have had. But it was her death (and the manner of her death) that has given her the stature that, I am afraid, she might not have achieved had she lived on. Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri… these actors are right there with her when it comes to talent but they will never capture that part of the heart of the audience that Smita Patil did, not with her talent but with her dying. She died due to complications during childbirth - the ultimate sacrifice a mother can make for her child. She was gone before she could do full justice to the talent she was bestowed with. She died before she could play the many roles that would have been written especially for her and with her died all the characters that only she could have brought alive on screen. (And she definitely missed living out what would probably have been the most challenging role of her life - that of a mother!) But I also feel she died before she would be reduced to playing roles that would do no service to her talent or sensibility. She escaped the inevitable fading, the disillusionment that all, barring a few lucky, actors face at the twilight of their career.

Smita Patil will forever remain young, beautiful, talented, vulnerable and ethereal because she died young...