A legendary actor loved for her joie de vivre (1912 – 2014)
Apart from her contribution to creative and performative art forms like Indian classical dance, choreography, theatre and cinema, what stands out in the life story of Zohra Sehgal is the courage of her convictions that made her transgress seemingly regimental rules of religion and community. Way back in 1942, this 30-year-old lady from a Sunni Muslim Pathan family from Rampur, Uttar Pradesh married a Hindu Punjabi Kamleshwar Sehgal, a like-minded partner who was a young, scientist, painter and dancer from Indore. They remained wedded till he passed away in 1959. Not only was Kamleshwar from a different religion, but he was also eight years younger than Zohra. Naturally, there were objections from family quarters, but the two overcame all obstacles and tied the knot.
Zohra was an irrepressible tomboy who lived to climb trees and play boy’s games, instead of playing with dolls like other girls of her age. The turning point came when as a teenager, while on vacation at Dehra Dun, she happened to watch an Uday Shankar performance. She remains the first Indian to have enrolled in Mary Wigman’s ballet school in Wesden, Germany, and after graduation, she travelled to Edinburgh with her cousin where she did her apprenticeship in theatre under a British actor.
Before her graduation, Zohra travelled across India, West Asia and Europe by car with an uncle. When she came back, she joined Queen Mary’s Girls College in Lahore where she had to attend college in a burqua as tradition in aristocratic Muslim families dictated. After this, she joined Uday Shankar’s dance troupe and travelled across Japan, West Asia, Europe and USA. This trip became the platform for love between Zohra and Kamleshwar who was also a part of the same troupe. The pair worked with Uday Shankar’s troupe at Almora and then formed their own dance troupe and went away to Lahore. But the pre-Partition years were filled with communal tension so the two came back to Bombay when the troupe pulled down its shutters. They joined Prithvi Theatre and Prithviraj Kapoor became a willing mentor to Zohra. Zohra’s first role in films was perhaps in Neecha Nagar (1946) adapted from Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths, which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival that year. She also choreographed a few films that included Raj Kapoor’s Awaara (1951). Her first interaction with television in India was as an actor in a serial called Mullah Naseeruddin based on adventures of a folk hero from Muslim folk tales.
She travelled with the theatre across India and performed everywhere including for jail inmates. which was an event far ahead of her time. After the death of her husband, Zohra first shifted to Delhi and then to London. Western audiences became familiar with Ms. Sehgal in 1962, when she appeared on television in several episodes of Doctor Who. This was followed by The Courtesans of Bombay and the mini-series The Jewel in the Crown (1984). besides a Merchant Ivory docudrama directed by James Ivory (1982). One of her most popular films in London was Bend it Like Beckham (2002). Hindi films saw her in grandmother roles from 1996, in films like Dil Se, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Veer Zara, Saawariya and Cheeni Kum. She was 90, when she did the film – Chalo Ishq Ladaye, and she was shown riding a bike and fighting the villains.
She was awarded the Padma Shri in 1998, the Kalidas Samman in 2001, the Sangeet Natak Academy Fellowship for Lifetime Achievement in 2004, the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF)-Laadli Media Awards in New Delhi, named Laadli of the century in 2008, and the Padma Vibhushan in 2010. She passed away on 10 July, 2014, at the ripe age of 102. She spiked her performances with her wonderful sense of timing, her humour, and that heavily lined face crinkled with her unceasing smile. No one perhaps has ever seen an unsmiling countenance in Zohra Sehgal.