A few days earlier she had walked up to the dais to receive her National Award for Best Actress for the offbeat film Pasi, clad in all finery. But the world came crashing down for those who loved Shoba, when on May 1, 1980, she was found to have killed herself in her house in Chennai, then Madras.
A controversy soon erupted over her death after her mother, Prema, a supporting actor in Malayalam cinema, claimed that it was a homicide. Accusing fingers were pointed at Shoba's husband of over a year and a half, acclaimed cinematographer-director Balu Mahendra. The case, however, fizzled out after the suicide theory gained ground and forensic investigations ruled out murder as the cause of death. Thus ended the career of a child star who debuted in comedian J P Chandra Babu’s directorial venture Thattungal Thirakkapadum, and who went on to make her presence felt in films in all the four south Indian languages in a very short span of time.
While she worked mostly in Tamil and Malayalam films, Shoba also went on to do a couple of Telugu films and four Kannada films. Kokila, directed by Balu Mahendra and featuring Kamal Haasan and Mohan, was among her more successful Kannada films while her Telugu film Manavuri Pandavulu too turned out to be a huge hit. Ace director Balachander, whose ability to spot talent has remained unrivalled in Kollywood, was among the first to pick Shoba for a pivotal role in his directorial Nizhal Nijamagiradhu. However, it was Durai who had cast her in Oru Veedu Oru Ulagam, who gave Shoba her biggest break in Pasi.
One of Shoba’s strongest assets was her self-confidence and she remained unfazed even while acting along senior and more established actors. Matching strides with seasoned stars like Rajinikanth and Sarath Babu, Shoba, who played Rajini’s kid sister in Mahendran’s Mullum Malarum, never allowed the stars to overshadow her performance and this earned her appreciation as a scene stealer.
What kind of a person was Shoba? This writer had a close rapport with the actor during her Pasi days, and Shoba always felt obliged to me for having interviewed her for a film fortnightly, her first exposure in the English press. The role of a ragpicker in Pasi was quite unlike any of the characters that she had essayed in her previous films. Not a day would pass without a late evening call from the actor to my landline in Madras (mobile phones were non-existent in those days), and an animated discussion on the day’s shoot would follow with Shoba doing most of the talking. She used to be particularly piqued about soot being smeared all over her face and arms, and the ragtag outfit that she had to wear, ripped apart at various places.
But, the role excited her no end and also allowed her a glimpse into the lives of ragpickers since Durai shot the film in various locations in the city. Shoba played Kuppamma, the daughter of an alcoholic, who has to pick rags to supplement her family income. She is seduced by a Lothario who promises to marry her. An unwanted pregnancy occurs but Kuppamma refuses to reveal the identity of the man. Later, she learns that he is married. His wife empathises with Kuppamma’s plight and finally Kuppamma dies during childbirth and the couple adopts the child with Rangan (Vijayan), Kuppamma’s lover, turning over a new leaf. The film turned out to be a superhit and fetched Shoba the National Award for Best Actress for the year 1979.
Still in her teens, Shoba fell head over heels in love with cinematographer-director Balu Mahendra in 1978. She had played pivotal roles in his films like Kokila, Azhiyatha Kolangal and Moodu Pani. Balu Mahendra had been a family friend of the actor and her mother Prema as well for years. Considering the fact that he was nearly three decades elder to her, Shoba initially saw in him a father figure. But she was highly impressed and overawed by his photography skills as Balu’s brilliant lenswork turned her into an ethereal beauty.
Every time this writer chanced to visit her house, she would be engrossed in poring over albums shot by Balu with her in various poses. Somewhere down the line, her adulation for the director turned to love and against the wishes of her parents and well-wishers, the couple got married although Balu was already a married man. Shoba believed that Balu would leave his first wife Akhileshwari and his son Shanki on whom he doted and that she would become the only woman in his life, but that did not happen.
Balu in interviews after Shoba’s death candidly admitted that she had meant a lot to him, and that he had been devastated after her death, but many believed that he was responsible for her suicide. At the time of his death in 2014, Balu was also married to film and TV star Mounika apart from Akhileshwari.
Tragically, Shoba, who was a thorough professional in front of the camera and could perform her roles with a high degree of maturity and comprehension, realised only at the fag end that she had totally messed up her life. The actor, who had the mettle and the chutzpah to conquer new horizons and carve out a great future on celluloid, lost her way in her personal life. Four years after Shoba died, her mother Prema who had all along been unable to reconcile to her daughter’s passing, also killed herself.
The manner of Shoba’s death, however, still remains cloaked in mystery. One may never know the whole truth. And just for the record, director KG George had transcribed Shoba’s life and times in his film Lekhayude Maranam – Oru Flashback, which released in 1983 with a young Nalini essaying the role of Shoba and Bharath Gopi that of Balu Mahendra.
CV Aravind is an ex-banker who has been dabbling in journalism for over four and a half decades now. He writes extensively on films and also contributes articles to newspapers and periodicals on a host of subjects. Views expressed are the author’s own.