Yesteryear actress-singer Sulakshana Pandit passed away yesterday (6th November) around 8 p.m. at Nanavati Hospital in Bombay following cardiac arrest due to age-related illnesses. She was 71. She will be cremated today (7th) at 1 p.m. at the Pawan Hans crematorium, Vile Parle in Bombay.
Sulakshana Pandit started working in the industry in the 1970s. Among the films she had acted in are Uljhan, Sankoch, Hera Pheri, Apnapan, Khandaan, Waqt Ki Deewar, and Salaakhen. Her song, Tu hee sagar tu hee kinara from Sankalp, was very popular. The Saat samundar paar se song, which she sang with Lata Mangeshkar for Taqdeer (1967), was another hit number. She had begun singing from the tender age of nine. Sulakshana Pandit made her acting debut in Uljhan (1975). She had acted with top actors like Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, Jeetendra, Vinod Khanna, Shashi Kapoor and Shatrughan Sinha.
She was the sister of actresses Vijayeta Pandit and Sandhya Singh, Maya Anderson and music composers Jatin-Lalit and Mandheer Pandit. Sulakshana never got married after her unrequited love for actor Sanjeev Kumar. She fell in love with the actor during the shooting of Uljhan. It is said that she was crestfallen after he rejected her marriage proposal. She is said to have been completely devastated after Sanjeev Kumar’s demise in 1985 and withdrew from the film industry. It is a matter of unbelievable coincidence that Sanjeev Kumar had also died on 6th November.
