The virtuoso film and TV actress Vidya Sinha, recently sene in ‘Kulfi Kumar Bajewala’, passed away at the age of 71. The actress was admitted to hospital on 11 August for breathing problems. She died of respiratory failure caused by heart and lung disease.

The actress was popular for her roles in Rajnigandha (1974), Choti Si Baat (1975) and Pati, Patni aur Wo (1978). The Mumbai born actress was crowned Miss Bombay at the age of 18. She became popular with “Rajnigandha” , a major box office success.

Another hit “Choti Si Baat” paved her way to act with Rajesh Khanna and Shabana Azmi in “Karm” . She acted in over 30 movies during 1974-1986. In 2011, she was seen in Salman Khan’s film “Bodyguard” .
In 2000 she tried her hands in T.V. Serials with “Bahu Rani” . She got fame from Zee TV show “Qubool Hai” . She was recently working in Star Plus show “Kulfi Kumar Bajewala” , from which she was seen missing due to her constant hospitalization.

Shubra Gupta, in a touching obit, writes: ‘We were witnessing something big in Bollywood: a leading lady who has a chance to exercise a choice. Sinha got a great partner in Amol Palekar, another debutant who made as much a mark: so good was Palekar in his average joe role which he made his own, that he got to play it over and over in his career, post-Rajnigandha. And the intense, bearded Dinesh Thakur as Naveen added a layer of welcome unpredictability.

“Rajnigandha’s box-office success gave a fillip to the ‘middle-of-the-road’ cinema being made by Basu Chatterjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Two years later, in 1976, Chatterjee made another winsome romance, Choti Si Baat, in which Palekar plays a hesitant lover who needs a bolt of courage to confess all to Sinha, and finds an avuncular godfather in Ashok Kumar. The film had, like its precursor, lovely, foot-tapping music, and cemented the reputation of its director and actors.

“Vidya Sinha had come to the movies from modelling, but unlike so many other young women who followed the same route only to never really shed the ramp (both Zeenat Aman and Praveen Babi were guilty of that stiffness even though they loosened up as they went along), Sinha turned out to be a consummate actress. And continued to fill up the screen, till she left.”

Tanya Trivedi

  This was a life