Sadhana

Builder and film financer, Yusuf Lakdawala, refuted the allegations levelled against him, by yesteryears actress Sadhana, on Wednesday. Lakdawala (63), and his lawyer Majeed Memon held a press conference refuting the claims and alleged that the FIR was lodged as an after thought and with ulterior motives. Lakdawala has sent a legal notice to Sadhana alleging defamation and said they will sue her for Rs 100 crore.

On August 12, Sadhana had lodged a complaint alleging that Lakdawala had threatened her on August 9, because he was interested in developing the three-story Sangeeta Bungalow at Santacruz. Singer Asha Bhosle owns the bungalow, while Sadhana and Lakdawala are tenants.

Lakdawala, a Bandra resident, said on August 9, it was Sadhana who called him up four times asking him to come to the bungalow and help her solve a dispute with the domestic helps about an overhead water tank.

“I went to Santacruz and we solved the issue. Later she even called me three times to thank me,” said Lakdawala. Memon said they have submitted a list of the phone records to the police.

Earlier in the day, they had gone to meet Home Minister R.R. Patil and Minority Welfare Minister, Naseem Khan. “We have submitted the phone records to them,” said Memon.

The property has been in dispute since the 1980s and a suit is still pending with the small causes court. As Bhosle has heirs and therefore claimants to the property, the tenants have been depositing rent with the small causes court since 1990.

Sources close to Sadhana said that a person going to the police to voice grievances does not amount to defamation. “If he (Lakdawala) is taking the legal course, then it will be adequately defended (by Sadhana),” said the source- HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times

Sadhana

The serendiptuous 60s — the decade of all those popular, remunerative musicals. No heroine defined this decade better than the luminously lovely Sadhana. Not only was she a basic talisman for many of these 60s bits of ephemera but what gave Sadhana the edge over contemporaries like Asha Parekh and Saira Banu, was her gift for understatement and her knack for making transparent her innermost feelings even while playing a typical ‘O Daddy’ heroine in a Kashmir confection.

This histrionic proficiency was perhaps a logical outcome as Sadhana Shivdasani spent her early life steeped in film culture. She was even named after the actress Sadhana Bose, her father’s favourite. After the Shivdasani family fled from Karachi during the post-partition riots, they encountered difficult times but their much-indulged daughter was allowed to see as many as two films a week. No wonder then, a teenage Sadhana sidelined her Auxilium Convent and Jai Hind College background and grabbed the chance to play the second lead in India’s first Sindhi film, Abana (’58). She was paid only the token Re 1 for Abana but from there it was a short leap forward when S Mukherji offered her the lead in Love In Simla (’60).

Immediately after Love In Simla’s runaway success, Sadhana became a youth icon. The Audrey Hepburn inspired `Sadhana fringe’ that feathered her broad forehead, caught on like wildfire and made her the fashion weather wane for her age. As Sadhana scored off more hits — Hum Dono (’61), Mere Mehboob (’63), Rajkumar (’64), Waqt (’65) — her style was increasingly imitated. Films, in those days, were still the rack

from which Fashion picked up its ideas and if Sadhana was pioneering muslim-style tight churidar-kurtas in Waqt, she had enough followers to cause a country-wide sartorial revolution.

For a short, giddy span Sadhana was queen of the box- office (of the 19 releases she had in the 60s, 11 were silver jubilees). Author-backed roles, too, made their way to her corner. With that will-o’-the-wisp quality and that heart- stopping air of breathlessness which she projected, she became increasingly identified with mystery suspense chillers. She was consecutively cast in three films that defined the genre — Woh Kaun Thi (’64), Mera Saaya (’66) and Anita (’67).

In 1966, soon after her family finally consented to her marriage to her Love In Simla director, R K Nayyar, her thyroid problems worsened, her eyes bulged unseemingly and her life started unravelling. She was summarily ejected from major films like Around The World (opposite Raj Kapoor) and Sunghursh (opposite Dilip Kumar).

Sadhana bravely underwent treatment at the Leigh clinic in Boston, came back to do films (some of them successful like Inteqam, Ek Phool Do Mali and Geeta Mera Naam), but somehow it was just not the same and Sadhana became one more casualty of the evanescent nature of stardom.

Today, a widow, she lives alone in her sea-facing flat, wilfully shunning all publicity. Her logic is irrefutable: “Let them remember the Sadhana of the Arzoo days.”

Sadhana and Rajendra Kumar in Mere Mehboob (1963)

Cast: Ashok Kumar, Sadhana, Rajendra Kumar, Nimmi

Director: H.S. Rawail

Music: Naushad

Lyrics: Shakeel Badayuni

Capsule Review: Mere Mehboob is a love triangle set within a decadent aristocratic Muslim ambience, and is the best known example of the archaic genre known as the ‘Muslim Social.’ It is a pain­stakingly put together ritual of courtship filled with garish sets and ornate dialogues denoting a sense of renewed nostalgiaassociated with a defunct ‘Nawabi’ culture. During the same decade Guru Dutt also attempted a similar Muslim love triangle Chaudhvin Ka Chand with considerable success, though the success of Mere Mehboob, thanks to Naushad’s innumerable love songs including the hit title song Mere mehboob tujhe meri mohabbat ki kasam and Mere mehboob mein kya nahin, remains unique to the genre. The film immortalized Sadhana’s beauty and grace, elevating her to the status of a minor icon for a while.