The theatre veteran, remembered for playing Jameela in the 2018 hit, died at her Mankavu home after a long illness, though reports differ on her exact age.
Savithri Sreedharan, who played Jameela, the mother of the title character in Sudani from Nigeria, died at her residence in Mankavu, Kozhikode, on Wednesday. She had been bedridden for a long stretch and passed from age-related ailments, according to The Hindu.
Her age is where the reports start to disagree. The Hindu puts her at 78. Onmanorama reports 83. DNA India, citing PTI, says she was 85. None of the outlets flag the discrepancy themselves, but readers should know the number isn't settled.
Sudani from Nigeria is what most people will remember her for, and rightly so. Her performance as the anxious, tender-hearted mother in the 2018 film earned her the Kerala State Film Award for Best Character Actress and a Special Jury Mention at the 66th National Film Awards. It was a rare mainstream moment for an actor who had spent decades doing the unglamorous, unpaid work of Malayalam theatre.
A theatre life that came first
Sreedharan's stage career ran close to four decades by most accounts, though even that number shifts slightly between reports. The Hindu says her debut came in Karutha Velicham with Valayanad Kala Samithi, followed by nearly twenty years in amateur theatre before she turned professional in 1984 through K T Mohammed's Kalinga Theatre, in a production called Ithu Bhoomiyanu. DNA's PTI copy instead credits Mohammed's Deepasthambham Mahascharyam as the turning point. Either way, Kalinga Theatre and Mohammed's mentorship come up across the reporting as central to her professional years.
She went on to work with several Kozhikode-based troupes, named variously as Sangamam, Stage India and Chiranthana, and won the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi's Best Actress award along with a state government honour for her work in the play Aniyara.
On screen, she was a late arrival and stayed a rare one. Her first film was M T Vasudevan Nair's Kadavu in 1991, and then there's a long gap before Sudani from Nigeria brought her back in 2018. After that came smaller but noticed parts in Virus, Dakini, Pada, Ittymaani: Made in China, Paappan, Valiyangadi and Mera Naam Shaji.
Her body was kept at the Town Hall in Kozhikode on Wednesday afternoon, from 3.30 pm to 4.30 pm, for the public to pay their respects, per The Hindu's report. No details on the cremation or a memorial gathering have been reported yet, and Malayalam film and theatre circles are likely to have more to say over the coming days as tributes come in from co-stars and directors she worked with.
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