Subhash K Jha

The lure of the arclights is not always blinding.

Take the coolest Queen of the Marquee Sridevi: happy looking after her husband and children, dropping daughter Jahnavi to school, and cooking her husband's favourite dishes.

Talk of her return continues persistently. Sridevi's last post-marriage release Judaai had just hit the theatres when I met Yash Chopra. It was the day after Sridevi had given birth to her first child. Chopra couldn't stop raving about his Chandni. "She's given a world-class performance in Judaai. I am planning a special project for her."

Not every actress can resist the lure of the marquee after marriage. Raakhee, Dimple Kapadia and Sharmila Tagore are three major actresses who came to the best phases of their career post marriage. The former two took marriage and career retirement vows almost simultaneously. "After mariage, I began to feel suffocated. I had to return to acting. Otherwise I would have ended up a wreck," Raakhee once admitted to me.

Yash Chopra's Kabhi Kabhie and Anil Ganguly's Tapasya brought the actress artistic fulfilment. Unlike Raakhee who chose Kabhi Kabhie over marriage, Sridevi's project for Yash Chopra never happened. Her first daughter needed her attention. Then, just when husband Boney Kapoor planned a project based on the Sally Field starrer Not Without My Daughter with Sridevi, the actress decided to have another baby.

Her returning to the screen is unlikely. "That is for the best," says a self-confessed die-hard filmmaker fan of the actress. "I want to remember her as the seductive baby doll in Mr India and Chandni. Not as Mrs Boney Kapoor posing as a come-hither siren."

When Rajesh Khanna married Dimple Kapadia almost overnight, he made it clear that he wanted a mother for his children and not an actress for a wife. Nevertheless, Dimple finally returned to shoot for Ramesh Sippy's dream vehicle Saagar.

For every Sridevi whose best was behind her before she quit, there is a Sharmila Tagore and a Nutan whose finest performances occurred post marriage. Nutan never wanted to continue acting after marriage. Apparently, her husband coaxed her to return to her career. If it were not for him, we would not have seen Nutan in the finest film of her career, Bimal Roy's Bandini.

Whether it was Sharmila Tagore in Shakti Samanta's Aradhana and Amar Prem, Nutan in Bandini and Saraswatichandra or Raakhee in Kabhi Kabhie and Tapasya, some of our screen's most alluring success stories reached a flashpoint only after they untied or loosened the knot.

On the other hand, Nargis fell in love with her costar Sunil Dutt during the making of her classic Mother India, and never looked back after marriage. Her last film, Raat Aur Din, produced by brother Anwar Husain, was completed after her marriage. She won the National Award for Raat Aur Din.

Another legend who voluntarily chose marriage over stardom is Mumtaz. She ran to the altar with a tycoon even as her films Aap Ki Kasam, Roti and Chor Machaye Shor played to packed houses all over India. Mumtaz's finest performance in K Balachander's Aaina came just after her marriage to remind audiences of their loss.

The pouting princess did return to play her one-time costar Biswajeet's son Prasanjeet's mother in David Dhawan's Aandhiyaan. But it was too late. Says Asha Parekh, "Once you leave, it is better to take a complete break. If you try to return after a long gap, the audience feels disoriented by the physical changes in the actress and rejects the comeback effort."

While Vyjayanthimala Bali refused every offer that came her way after marriage, Mala Sinha continued working in scores of films in Mumbai while her husband in Nepal watched their marriage crumble.

Today, Madhuri Dixit has a Dr Shriram Nene waiting patiently for her in Los Angeles. What are the chances that Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas will be Madhuri's swansong?