Silk Smitha - an Obituary

(Pictures taken from Internet)

We were just now watching the film "Dirty Picture" on TV and one of my old blog came to my mind and a modified version is shared again.

During 1980-81, I was posted at Salem, Tamilnadu when I came across Silk Smith- who stayed in a nearby room of same Hotel, Hotel Gokulam.

I recall one particular incident when a Tamil film was being shot in Salem. The producer, who happened to be an old colleague of MGR was staying at our hotel with his entire  crew.
The vamp in this film was the famous Silk Smitha. I had earlier watched her Tamil film "Mundram Pirai" which was later remade in Hindi as Saadma, and her appearance was definitely erotic in both the versions.

While Vijaykant, the Hero, was staying in a double bed AC room, on the first floor, I was in a AC single room no 211 in ground floor,  where as Silk Smitha  with her hair dresser was in room no 216 - also AC single room. We shared the hotel corridor.
Silk was obviously lonely and will plead with Vijaykant for a game of card or for few drinks  together-- as informed by Hotel receptionist who also doubled as telephone operator. Silk will throw lot of tantrums every day to catch our attenton in the corridor and we (me and BHEL engineer -Sambshivam) will talk with her little bit without any particular topic.

One day in the middle of night I was awakened up by loud knocks at my hotel room door. I opened the door only to find a drunk Silk Smitha knocking on all doors in the corridor.  She was trying to walk down to her room hung onto the arms of her hair dresser. Often she would break into a dance in the corridor. I could only pity her for her lonely life despite such a large fan following.

The hotel was popular with Tamil film industry and we could watch few scenes of film shooting as well. I was impressed by the tedious process of film making, while in fact I saw just a small portion of all the work involved.

Now about Silk Smitha..
She was born Vijaylakhmi in 1960, and got her stage name from her 1st hit film  Vandichakram (1979) in which her name was Silk. She was active in films for 17 years and acted in 450 films. In 1996 at the age of 35 she committed suicide due to financial problem, alcoholism and disillusionment in love. RIP Silk.

Electronics Gadgets used by people of our generation.. contd..

Continued from last post..
I have covered valve radio, gramophone, transistor radio and spool tape recorder in earlier post..

Gadgets used & being used by our generation :

5th Gadget in my list is record player and later record changers. These used to play 45 and 33.33 RPM records called EP and LP respectively. I purchased a Phillips record player in 1973, which I use to hook up with Phillips transistor's Aux input to listen to melodies of yesteryear. 

6th Gadget in my list is a cassette type tape recorder. Later there were 2 in ones (radio and tape recorder) and 3 in ones (Radio, tape recorder and Audio CD player) became popular. I had brought from Germany one Toshiba make 2 in one with digital tuning for radio model in 1983. Later we had other 2 in one and 3 in one as well. Now people invest in high end music systems - san the tape recorder part. 

 

7th Gadget used by us was a calculator - 1st with LED display later with LCD display. A table top model which was used initially. Later   scientific calculator with trigonometrical, exponential, Logarithmic functions and with LCD display. An improved version of programmable calculator also was used by some technical persons but it did not become much popular.  I purchased another variant-calculator watch. Though not so popular now, we can still see calculator being used by some shop keepers.

8th Gadget which became popular with people of our generation was a electronic diary. This was mainly used to replace mini diaries which listed telephone numbers. I still have one with 32 KB of memory.  64 & 128 KB models were also available. This is not in use now. 

9th Gadget in my list is land line telephones became popular around this time with introduction of subscriber trunk dialing (STD)  & ISD service made available by the department of telephones (DoT) now called BSNL. Telephone was not a new device and was used by many people but we took a connection only after subscriber trunk dialing (STD) was introduced in Ranchi.

Later wireless models were available and still are under use. 

10th Gadget in my list is Television sets. In 1983, Doordarshan established a high power TV tower in Ranchi. I was trying to convince my wife and kids to allow me buy a portable BW (Black & White) 14" TV with battery back up set. Some how one of my friend's 3 in one with 4" mini TV came to me for repair. When the family saw DD's programs like Humlog, Chitrhar etc I was allowed to purchase 14" BW Onida TV later around 1986 we purchased Onida 21" colour TV. Now Plasma, LCD, LED are in use.  

Other gadgets PC, laptop, camera, mobile, tablets are also being used by our generation effectively.