PremiumNew Delhi: Bollywood’s favourite girl-next-door Vidya Sinha, known for films such as Rajnigandha (1974) and Choti Si Baat (1975), passed away on Thursday morning following heart and lung disorders. She was 71.
The face of many of filmmaker Basu Chatterjee’s slice-of-life stories centered on the Indian working class in the 1970s, Sinha was born to film producer Pratap S. Rana in 1947 in Mumbai. She began modeling and acting at the age of 18, was crowned Miss Bombay, after which several advertising stints led to a discovery by Chatterjee.
Fame came with her roles of a simple, ordinary girl in films in Rajnigandha and Choti Si Baat, which were the 70s version of Bollywood’s parallel cinema, without the usual trappings of song, dance, action and fights. Along with directors like Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Shyam Benegal, Chatterjee and his actors were portraying the real world of real people at the time.
Over time, Sinha went on to do bigger budget Bollywood productions like Pati Patni Aur Woh (1977), including a negative role in director Raj Sippy’s Josh (1981).
After a two-decade sabbatical, Sinha ventured into television shows like Bahu Rani (2000), Hum Do Hain Na, Bhabhi Kavyanjali (2004), the NDTV Imagine serial Haar Jeet, Zee TV’s Qubool Hai and most recently, Itti Si Khushi on Sony TV. She also made a comeback to films with Salman Khan’s Bodyguard in 2011.
