Sadhna Death Anniversary: Lag Jaa Gale Ki Fir Yeh Haseen Raat Ho Na Ho; The Face Behind This Tune Had A Larger Than Life Persona

Sadhana, hailed as one of the most beautiful beauties ever to grace the silver screen, was forced to retire early due to a thyroid ailment that wreaked carnage on her appearance. That was only the beginning. Defiantly confronting financial difficulties, isolation, unwarranted legal battles, and, eventually, disease. Sadhana demonstrated that she has been much more than just a pretty face.

The acclaimed actress’s death anniversary is today, December 25th.

Sadhana Shivdasani was born in Karachi in 1941 and moved to India with her family just after the Partition. She was initially featured in Raj Kapoor’s Shri 420 as a choir lady in the tune Mudh mudh ke na dekh. Following her breakthrough in the Sindhi film Abana, director S Mukerji cast her alongside his son Joy Mukerji in Love In Simla. Her fringe haircut, which she modeled after Audrey Hepburn’s in Roman Holiday and was proposed by the director of the film, RK Nayyar, whom she eventually married, developed a fad.

Call it wicked gaze or fate, Sadhana had just signed H.S. Rawail’s Sunghursh when a thyroid condition began to affect her face and especially her eyes. She was so upset that she requested Rawail to sign for someone else. Rawail apparently disregarded it and said he’d wait for her. Nonetheless, five days later, Vyjayanthimala was named as the film’s lead in a newspaper article.

Her husband’s death devastated her, and she became a loner. She refused to play the roles of mother’s or ‘bhabhi,’ preferring instead to be remembered as the ‘beautiful’ Sadhana. She maintained herself occupied by gardening and going to the clubhouse to play cards. She enjoyed chatty meals with contemporaries like Waheeda Rehman, Asha Parekh, Helen, and the late Nanda and Shammi.

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Sadhana died of cancer at Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai on Christmas Day, December 25, 2015. She was 74 years old at the time. She was sick and depressed.  No one in the industry was willing to assist her. When there is a celebration, celebrities from Cinema come in droves, and they never try to find out what is going on in someone’s life, actor-host Tabassum told the press at Sadhana’s burial.