Remembering Sadhana, India's Greta Garbo

Tributes, quotes and obits. Those are a must as soon as a cherished artiste breathes her last for a real-life The End. The question is: was she remembered and valued at all, once she chose to retire on Sunset Boulevard?


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Out of sight, completely out of mind, that's the unwritten law of show business. Partly, Sadhana opted to bask in anonymity. She'd had her fill of adulation, she didn't look the way she did anymore. Inevitable perhaps, with age and a serious thyroid ailment.

"I'd rather be remembered as Sadhana and not as a lady who's a shadow of her former self," she'd insist. "And no amount of make-up and dark glasses can hide the fact that...well...I'm someone else now. So let it be, please."



The 'it' she was alluding to was a Filmfare Lifetime Achievement trophy. "I don't want to be seen in public," she smiled politely when my boss and I tried to convince her that she'd get a standing ovation at the event. "That's sweet of you," she saw us off at the door, gave me a benign look, "Drop in anytime for a chat...but it won't be for publication."

That's the last I saw of Sadhana Shivdasani, who passed away today at the age of 74, following protracted illness. In between, she did surface: she assented to photographs when she attended a fund-raising event. And she had no choice when the paparazzi went ballistic, clicking her when she reached the police commissioner's office. An acrimonious case of tenant-landlord rights had erupted, the recluse had to fight for her rights. Nope, now she couldn't echo that famous line attributed to Greta Garbo, "Leave me alone."


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Eerily enough, just yesterday I'd downloaded photos from the net, for a commissioned piece on the asli fashion trend-setters of B-town cinema. I was told it needn't be someone on the scene right now, it could be a yesteryear. Devika Rani perhaps? What about Madhubala? Or the resplendent Meena Kumari of Pakeezah?

Instantaneously, though, Sadhana was my prime choice. The lehengas, dupattas, and accessories she displayed in Mere Mehboob, are classic, even if she dared to go for odd colour combinations like flaming orange clashing deep purple. The 'Muslim social' directed by H S Rawail has never been justly estimated for its costume designs. They're fantastic, even more haute couture than her skin-tight salwaar kameezes in Yash Chopra's Waqt.


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Mere Mehboob was extraordinary. An SMS to the director's son, Rahul Rawail, to ask if he had any high-res photos from his late father's opus, drew a blank.

So why wasn't I surprised?

But I'm shocked when a doctor from a South Mumbai hospital tells me, "Sadhanaji was with us a while back. She had contracted a terminal illness on her jawline. There was little that could be done. She would be in bed in her room for days without a single visitor. No one came to see her, or asked if she was receiving visitors. At most, I think there was a household help who'd attend to her needs."

Right at this very moment, TV channels are running her hit songs - especially Jhumka gira re Bareilly ke bazaar mein, which is on heavy rotation. Tweets, there are aplenty. Facebook is awash with her songs picked up from Youtube. And journos, like myself, are tapping away on an X'mas afternoon on laptops.

Something within me says, she wouldn't care a whit for our shraddhanjalis. She had elected to forget the glory days. Sadhana Shivdasani didn't want to look back. Neither in anger nor in affection.


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