- published: 05 Jun 2016
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Shashikala Om Prakash Saigal (née Jawalkar; Marathi: शशिकला; born 4 August 1932), better known by her first name, is an Indian film and television actress, who has played supporting roles in over 100 Bollywood films.
Shashikala was one of six children born in Solapur, Maharashtra to a well-to-do Marathi-speaking Jawalkar family. By age 5, she had already been dancing, singing, and acting on stage in many towns in Solapur district. When Shashikala was in her pre-teens, through ill luck, her father became bankrupt, and he brought his family to Bombay (now Mumbai) where they thought that Shashikala, the best-looking and most-talented among his children, could find work in movies. For some time, the family lived with friends and barely survived, while Shashikala wandered from one studio to another looking for work. She earned in bits and pieces till she met Noor Jehan, the reigning screen queen.
Noor Jehan's husband, Shaukat Hussain Rizvi, was making a movie Zeenat then, and included Shashikala in a qawwali scene. She received 25 rupees for her role. She struggled on and got small roles in movies made by P. N. Arora, Amiya Chakravarti, and a few other producers. She got roles in V. Shantaram's Teen Batti Char Raasta (1953) and a few other movies. While in her early twenties, Shashikala met and married Om Prakash Saigal, who belonged to the Kundan Lal Saigal family, and had two daughters.
Actors: Suhasini Deshpande (actress), Pitambar Kale (director),
Plot: Compassionate, generous, pious and gentle Meera lives a poor lifestyle in rural Maharashtra along with her widower Bhajan-singing dad, Dinkar, and a younger brother, Rajesh. She devotes her entire life to looking after both of them, and after Rajesh completes his education, he re-locates to Mumbai, meets and falls in love with a movie actress, Mohini, and gets married to her without seeking blessings from his dad. Since Meera has grown older and is rather plain-looking, no one is prepared to marry her. So Rajesh arrives, and takes her to live in his palatial house in Mumbai. This is where Meera will find that her status is no one that of a servant, and this is where she will be verbally abused, slapped and publicly whipped by Mohini, and may end up spending the rest of her days as a mere slave to her sister-in-law and her doting mother, Shashikala.
Genres: Drama,