Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma speaks to Mid-Day about being a diehard Sridevi fan and how he "hated Boney Kapoor forbringing that angel from heavendown to being just an ordinary housewife." Here's what he said about the actress: My journey to the real Sridevi from being just an obsessively die-hard fan of hers started when I was preparing for mydebut film Shiva. I used to walk from Nagarjuna's office in Chennai to a neighboring street where Sridevi used to live and I used to just stand and watchSridevi's house from outside her gate. I just couldn't believe that the goddess of beauty lived in that stupid looking house. I saystupid because I believed that no manmade house deserves to house that beauty called SRIDEVI. And then after Shiva became a big hit, to my utter disbelief a producer took me to meet her at that very same house where I used to stand outside the gate. It was at night and as luck would have it, there was a power cut in her house. I was sitting in her living room in candlelight waiting for the angel to appear and my heart was thumping like mad. Her mother told us she was busy packing, as she was about to catch a flight to go to Mumbai. As I waited, every once in a while Sridevi was rapidly crossing the living room as she was moving from one room to another room in a rush to finish her packing, even as she apologetically smiled at me for the delay. Finally she came and said a matter-of-fact few lines that she would very much like to work with me, and then she left for Mumbai. I wrote Kshana Kshanam, my Telugu film, as a love letter written to her by me with my

camera. In the making of the film, I started discovering her as a person and I realised that she has an invisible wall around her and she does not let anyone cross that. Also during the course of working with her I began to understand more and more as a director about the nuances of performances and characterizations. Also through her style I realised that cinematic acting is many times more complex than the so-called method acting.Her popularity had to be seen to

be believed. When we were

shooting in a Nandyal, there used

to be a crowd of more than

20,000 people the whole night

around the bungalow where she

was staying. The crowd just

stared at it while she was

sleeping in the morning. We used

to know that she is coming to

the location because of the huge

column of dust coming towards

us that was caused by the

thousands of people running

behind her car.

I finished Kshana Kshanam and

in due course I have seen her

going through a lot of personal

tragedies like her father's death

and her mother's mental illness.

Suddenly the woman whose

company everyone desired was

left all alone in the world, till

Boney Kapoor stepped into her

life and married her. I was one of

the few million men in the

country who wanted to kill

Boney out of sheer jealousy.

Straight from her super stardom

and magazine covers, I saw her

in Boney Kapoor's house, serving

tea like an ordinary housewife. I

hated Boney Kapoor for bringing

that angel from heaven down to

being just an ordinary

housewife. I stopped going to

their house because I couldn't

bear to see Sridevi in a realistic

setting.

So what if Boney Kapoor has the

real Sridevi in his house? I have

her captured in the form of a

cinematic goddess in the temple

of my mind camera and also as a

divine angel in the heart of my

celluloid dreams. I thank God for

creating Sridevi and I thank Louis

Lumiere for creating the movie

camera to capture and contain

her beauty forever. I thank Balki

and Gauri for bringing her back

in such a befitting and wonderful

film.