Surekha Sikri: Her brilliance resided in her complete unawareness of it

Surekha Sikri never thought of herself as a brilliant actor. I first became aware of Surekha Sikri in a film called Parinati way back in 1989. Before that, she was in Govind Nihalani’s monumental partition saga Tamas where she didn’t have much to do.

But Tamas director Govind Nihalani had intimated me about this “explosive actress who chews into a scene, no matter how brief.” This, coming from the director who thought nothing of dismissing Shabana Azmi , meant a lot. I wondered what was so special about Surekha.

Parinati answered the question. It was my actual introduction to Sikri’s secret vault of talent. A Rajasthani moral fable where she played wife to Basant Joglekar, Surekha Sikri brought into the dense drama an impishness and a Promethean provocativeness. She was the life and breath of a film that hardly anyone saw: it was premiered on Doordarshan and was branded an ‘art’ film which back then meant, boring.

Surekha Sikri was far from boring. Her laughter would reach the sets before she did. She was nothing like any other prominent leading lady of the time. Perhaps that explains why mainstream Hindi cinema never acknowledged her specialness.

“I know I don’t look like the typical heroine, nor do I want to. I am happy with what I have,” said the feisty actress. Surekha Sikri was the Zohra Sehgal of a generation that came after Zohra Sehgal. Unconventional in looks and in her conduct, Surekha never cared to try her luck in commercial Hindi cinema. I am not sure, but I think she looked down on potboilers.

Too intelligent to be a bimbo, too self-aware to consider selling out to commercial cinema(where her peers like Uttara Baokar, Manohar Singh and Raghuvir Yadav limped through a trickle of awkward parts) Surekha lived her life on her own times. She was in a live-in relationship with her life partner Hemant Rege for ten years before they finally got married in 1994. His death fifteen years later left a void in Surekha’s life that she filled with work.

In her later years, Surekha was busier than ever before. Her eight-year stint as ‘Dadisa’ in the television series Balika Vadhu brought her the kind of household popularity that she had never experienced before. It is truly tragic that most of Surekha’s renown was restricted to arthouse audiences. Her best films and performances, like Prakash Jha’s Anadi Anant, Khalid Mohamed’s Mammo, Fareeda Mehta’s Kali Salwar and Shyam Benegal ’s Hari Bhari, were hardly seen.

Surekha’s luck changed at the fag-end of her life when Amit Sharma offered her the matriarch’s role in Badhaai Ho . Amit wasn’t sure Surekha was the right fit for the role. But Surekha was determined to get the role. She auditioned thrice until she convinced Amit.

“Today I realize how stupid I was even considering anyone else. Only Surekhaji could have played the grandmother’s role. She owned the role. And she become the mother figure for all of us on the sets,” recalls Amit tearfully.

His name was the first on her phone and she would often dial him “accidentally” during her last days. Amit would gently ask if he could do anything for her. “Kuch nahin, Beta. Bass, kabhi kabhi humse baat kar liya karo,” that husky voice would implore.

I wonder how accidental those calls were.​

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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