Forgotten by Bollywood and abandoned by children, Yash Chopra heroine lived alone for 12 years, donated house to NGO before death

Indian Express

2 days ago

Actor Achala Sachdev's resume is sterling; she has worked with the likes of Dev Anand and Raj Kapoor, Yash Chopra and Rajesh Khanna. She played the grandmother of Kajol's character in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and the song 'Ae Meri Zohra Jabeen,' from the film Waqt, was picturised on her. Although she was reduced to playing mothers and grandmothers like most Hindi film actors her age, she continued working until the early 2000s, when she appeared in Karan Johar's Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.
For someone who began her career in the 1950s, this was a remarkably long run. But Achala Sachdev's final years weren't very pleasant. She lived alone in her two-bedroom Pune flat for over a decade, cared for only by an attendant. Her two children weren't in contact with her, and before her passing, she donated her house to an NGO. Like so many veterans who'd given decades to the film industry, she was abandoned by it.
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Born in Peshawar in 1920, she died in Pune at the age of 91 in 2012. For the last several months of her life, she was admitted at the Poona Hospital and Research Centre. At her house, she was seen to by an attendant provided by the Janseva Foundation, to which she had donated money to start the Achala Sachdev Institute of Education. The institute trains people from tribal areas in basic hospital and patient-related care. She had also transferred her house in the name of the organisation.
Over the course of her career, she worked in films such as Mera Naam Joker, Julie, Haqeeqat and Himalay Ki God Main. She also was a part of English films such as Nine Hours to Rama and Merchant-Ivory film The Householder. Her last film was the Hrithik Roshan-Esha Deol-starrer Na Tum Jaano Na Hum. The 1950s saw her work in critically acclaimed films like Mother, Rahi, Footpath, Chandni Chowk, Naukri, Azad, Miss Mary, and Adalat. But it was after 1965's Waqt that her career took off.
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She appeared in hundreds of films, and moved to Pune in the 1970s after marrying a British man named Clifford Douglas Peters. Achala had been introduced to Peters by Yash Chopra. Both had been married previously. Her career began as a child artiste in the 1950s, when she was chosen to play the sister of Dev Anand's character in the film Dilruba. Before that, she worked at AIR in Delhi. Before the Partition, she was working in Lahore. But after Clifford's passing, she was alone. Her son moved to the United States and preferred to remain in touch with her via phone, according to The Times of India, and her daughter was estranged. Rajiv Nanda, a close family friend, told Mumbai Mirror just before her passing that he had been trying to contact her acquaintances in the film industry, but she didn't get much attention from them.
Only Amitabh Bachchan and Ekta Kapoor paid tribute to her, and her son Jyotin attended the funeral with a few relatives after flying in from the United States. Otherwise, her story echoes those of other Bollywood personalities such as OP Nayyar, Bharat Bhushan, Bhagwan Dada, and more. It's always been an unforgiving industry, especially for those without support.