New Delhi: For most millenials, one of the first memories of Zohra Sehgal, often called the Bollywood’s favourite grandmother, is perhaps director Karan Johar’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, where she played the role of an aging grandmother.
In the movie, Sehgal served as actor Hrithik Roshan’s entry point into the tumultuous story of his family and the cord that finally brought them together.
At the age of 101, Sehgal in an interview to Reginald Massey of The Guardian said the one thing she enjoyed the most in her life was ‘sex, sex and more sex’.
Sehgal was undeterred by Bollywood’s love for conventional good looks, and wielded her wit and charisma to secure a niche for herself in the industry.
“In moonlight, even a donkey looks beautiful,” Sehgal told Ashish Khokar when he went to interview her nearly 26 years ago. “You are meeting me now, when I’m old and ugly, you should have seen me when I was young and ugly,” she said.
On her birth anniversary, 27 April, ThePrint remembers Sehgal, who straddled the worlds of dance, films and theatre with great success.
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Defying conventions
Sahibzadi Zohra Begum Mumtaz-ullah Khan was born in a progressive, aristocratic Muslim family in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, in 1912. Brought up in the age of purdah, Sehgal was sent to Lahore to pursue her higher education at Queen Mary College. Sehgal ended up at Mary Wigman’s school in Dresden, Germany, where she trained in Eurythmics.
In 1935, Sehgal joined Uday Shankar’s dance troupe in Japan, and even though she was rarely cast as the lead because of her unconventional features, she deeply invested in her dancing.
“I never got the main roles because I wasn’t beautiful and sexy but I hung in there,” Sehgal told Khokar.
“Sehgal envied her sister’s fame and attractiveness, says Sehgal’s daughter Kiran Segal in the biography Zohra Sehgal: Fatty. Because of this complex, Zohra Sehgal ‘tried very hard to be charming and attract attention’,” wrote Rhea Nath in 2017.
Kiran writes in the biography: “Once in Delhi we had been invited to a reception. The evening was very enjoyable, meeting lots of friends one had lost touch with. When we returned home, I exclaimed, ‘Oh, what a lovely evening it was!’ To which, she immediately replied, ‘Kya lovely evening mera to kisi ne notice hi nahi liya! (What lovely evening, no one took any notice of me!) I just burst out laughing, it was too funny.”
In 1942, Sehgal fell for Kameshwar Sehgal, who was eight years younger than her, and married him in Allahabad, one of the few places in pre-Independent India where a Hindu could marry a Muslim without either having to convert. Sehgal had two children, Kiran and Pavan.
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Life in UK
In 1945, Sehgal became a dance director at Prithvi Theatre. She stayed on in that position till 1959, and around that time Kameshwar passed away.
In 1962, she got a theatre scholarship to the United Kingdom. She wouldn’t return to India until 1987. Initially, she studied theatre while living at a students’ hostel “like an eighteen-year-old”, according to her daughter’s memoir of her. Eventually, when Kiran and Pavan moved to London, she took up two jobs — dressing actors in a theatre and working at a store to make ends meet.
Career and accomplishments
Aside from mastering dance and theatre, Sehgal also made a foray into movies. She is internationally known for her roles in television series Dr. Who (1964-65) and the movie The Jewel in the Crown.
In 1993, Sehgal and her sister Uzra Butt starred in Shahid Nadeem’s popular play Ek Thi Nani. This role marked the start of her career as the loving, displaced grandmother always clamouring for a return to tradition. She then went on to star in various movies and TV shows as the quintessential grandmother — Bhaji on the Beach (1992), The Mystic Masseur (2001), Bend It Like Beckham (2002), Dil Se (1998), Saawariya and Cheeni Kum (2007) and TV serials Tandoori Nights (1985–87) and Amma and Family (1996).
She was awarded the Padama Shri in 1998, Kalidas Samman in 2001 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship for lifetime achievement.
Death and tributes
In 2014, Sehgal was diagnosed with pneumonia and died due to a cardiac arrest on 10 July 2014.
On her demise, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had tweeted: “Prolific & full of life, Zohra Sehgal made a mark through her acting which is admired across generations. Saddened on her demise”.
“Zohraji was a rocket on take-off, each day of the shoot. Her energy and joie de vivre (joy of living) were unmatchable. I cannot remember her asking for a whiskey after each shot from Balki, but yes, she did enjoy her champagne and because she had expressed a desire to be given some after the film was over, I did send across the ‘bubbly’ to her,” said Bachchan remembering Sehgal in 2017.
“A journey of (a) million miles overloaded with smiles. Even at a 100 plus I have yet to meet a naughtier young girl…will miss you Zohra,” tweeted actor Shah Rukh Khan.
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