'It never stops hurting': Janhvi Kapoor opens up about losing Sridevi

Dubai: There is a particular kind of pressure that comes with being Sridevi's daughter. It follows Janhvi Kapoor onto every set, into every interview, and into every review written about her since she first stepped in front of a camera. She has been living with it long enough now that she no longer flinches. She just answers it honestly.

Ahead of the release of her upcoming film Peddi, Janhvi sat down for a wide-ranging conversation that turned, as it always does, to her mother. What was striking was not the emotion, though that was present too, but the steadiness with which she spoke. This is a woman who has clearly done the work of figuring out how to carry something that heavy without being crushed by it.

On the subject of comparison, she was refreshingly direct. "Let's be pragmatic," she said to Times Now. "It's a fact that no one can be her." She was quick to reframe what the conversation around her actually looks like, explaining that nobody is genuinely expecting her to reach Sridevi's level. "The comparison is more in the tonality of 'Can she live up to what her mother created?' I think even that is an impossibility."

Rather than letting that land as defeat, she turned it into something quieter and more personal. "My endeavour is just to honour her legacy, do what I can to take it forward. I am just grateful for the opportunities that I get because it makes me happy, and it keeps her memory alive as well."

It is one thing to speak about legacy with composure. It is another thing entirely to speak about the loss underneath it, and Janhvi did both within the same conversation. When asked whether losing her mother still hurts, she did not reach for something measured or rehearsed. "It's never not going to hurt," she said simply. And then she said something that was quietly devastating.

She still has dreams, she explained, where her mother has simply gone somewhere and is on her way back. "I sometimes have these dreams where it feels like she has gone on a trip and is coming back," she said. "In my dream, that is a reality." Not a metaphor, not a coping mechanism she has consciously constructed. Just the place her sleeping mind goes, where the loss has not fully landed yet and Sridevi is still reachable.

What she said next reframes the way you look at her entire career. When asked where she feels closest to her mother, the answer was both unexpected and deeply personal. "I feel the most connected to her in two places: one is when I am in front of the camera, which is why it means so much to me. And when I go to Tirupati, which is why I do it too much. That's when I feel most at peace, most connected, and when I can hear myself and maybe her also a little bit."

That is not ambition driving her to keep working and keep making those early morning flights to Tirupati. That is something much older and much more personal than that.

Sridevi passed away on February 24, 2018, in Dubai, at the age of 54. Peddi releases in cinemas on June 4.