Veteran film and TV actor Surekha Sikri, known for her impressive performances in Mammo, Badhaai Ho and popular TV show Balika Vadhu, died on Friday morning following a cardiac arrest, her agent said. Sikri was 75.
In a statement shared with the media, the agent said the actor was suffering from complications arising out of a second brain stroke. “Three-time national award winning actress Surekha Sikri has passed away following a cardiac arrest earlier this morning at the age of 75. She had been suffering from complications arising from a second brain stroke,” the actor’s agent Vivek Sidhwani said. “She was surrounded by family and her caregivers. The family asks for privacy at this time. Om Sai Ram,” he added.
The actor’s last rites took place at a crematorium in Santa Cruz. Sikri had suffered her second brain stroke in September last year. Her first brain stroke was in 2018.
The wheelchair-bound actor had turned up to accept her best supporting actress National Film Award for Badhaai Ho in 2019.
One of the most formidable actors of her generation, Sikri leaves behind a rich body of work spread across theatre, television and films though she became more popular for her roles in TV shows and movies in her later years.
Best known to the contemporary audiences as Dadisa from the popular Indian soap opera Balika Vadhu and the cantankerous-yet-lovable mother-in-law from Badhaai Ho!, the Delhi-born actor spent her childhood days in the hills of the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand.
With an aim to explore other avenues as an actor, Sikri shifted base to Mumbai in the late 1970s and made her debut in films with Amrit Nahata’s 1978 political satire Kissa Kursi Ka and followed it up with critically-acclaimed features Tamas (1986) by Govind Nihalani, for which she won her first National Film Award, and Saeed Akhtar Mirza’s Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro in 1989.
The same year she was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award. Shyam Benegal’s 1994 feature film Mammo.
The film, which depicts the tragedy of the Partition with its story of two sisters divided by geographical lines, earned Sikri her second National Film Award. The director-actor duo further collaborated on 1996 musical Sardari Begum and 2001’s Zubeidaa.
In cinema, Sikri worked with celebrated filmmakers like Rituparno Ghosh, Aparna Sen and Mani Kaul among others in films such as Raincoat, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer and Nazar. The actor made her foray into television in the 1990s with Sanjha Chula and went on to feature in popular shows like Kabhie Kabhie, Just Mohabbat, CID, Banegi Apni Baat and Balika Vadhu.
Her portrayal of strict matriarch Kalyani Devi Dharamveer Singh aka Dadisa in the show Balika Vadhu made her a household name among the younger generation of film as well as television directors. She played the part of ‘Dadi’ in other soap operas such as Pardes Mein Hai Mera Dil… and Ek Tha Raja Ek Thi Rani….
Sikri also starred in Badhaai Ho, which was one of the biggest hits of the year and brought Sikri her third National Film Award.
Sikri was last seen in Netflix’s anthology Ghost Stories (2020), in the story directed by Zoya Akhtar. (PTI)
