My mother told me yesterday morning that the actor and dancer Padmini is no more. I felt that one chapter of my childhood had ended. As a young child growing up in various cantonments the weekly Hindi movie was a great educator and to some extent it neutralised the negative effects of being deprived of Indian inputs. My mother would often talk of Padmini and her sisters. The 'Travancore sisters' as she called them. I guess for someone from outside Kerala and especially for someone from outside South India Padmini would have been just one of those heroines who made the hero's world a little more colourful. In a state like Kerala she must have shocked many by entering the celluloid world. Inspite of their matrilineal traditions and the immense freedom their women enjoyed the land owning Nairs must have been shocked. Not unlike the case of Mallika Sherawat and the conservative society of Haryana. In Mallika's case the desire to shock was a calculated one in Padmini's case the fact that she was acting in films was enough to shock the orthodox.
My mother is my source of information as far as commercial Malayalam cinema is concerned. When she told me some years ago that Shobana ('Dance like a Man', 'Anantaram') is Padmini's niece I became extremely attentive. Another cousin Sukumari is also a one-woman institution in Malayalam cinema. Padmini's ouevre in Hindi cinema was limited but will be remembered. "Payal" [1957], Babubhai Mistry's "Mahabharat" [1965], Raj Kapoor's "Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai" [1961], and "Mera Naam Joker" [1971].
Her film debut in Udai Shankar's Kalpana, the manner in which she left Travancore and established herself in the Madras film industry, acted in films made in all the South Indian languages and made her mark in Bollywood long before anyone had heard of Kamalahasan or Sridevi is something which has never been recognized. Maybe if she had been a man.
Some excellent links to Padmini are available here.
