When three-time National Award winner Surekha Sikri was insecure about her looks: ‘Used to upset her a lot…’

Veteran actor Surekha Sikri was known for her many memorable, powerful performances on screen. From theatre, films to television, Sikri had done it all, and excelled in various mediums equally. Winner of three National Film awards, it seems unlikely that an actor of her calibre would ever have nurtured commonplace insecurities which we all experience from time to time.
In an earlier interview with SpotBoyE, actor Rajit Kapur had revealed that Surekha Sikri also used to be insecure once upon a time, but not about her talent.

Kapur said, “Unfortunately, not many people knew what a firehouse she was, that her theatre colleagues knew. I also know that good looks came in the way so often with her. She was never given a great part since she wasn’t beautiful in the conventional sense and that used to upset her a lot in the middle. But soon she stopped caring about it. A performer like her needs to be given a salute.”

Showering praise on Sikri, Rajit went on to add, “She could do any role and the smallest part given to her would shine since she was a performer.” And we know how true this is, courtesy one of her most talked about roles in the latter part of her career — as the wisecracking Dadima in Badhaai Ho. Surekha Sikri won her third National Film Award for that role. She had previously been honoured with the prestigious prize for her stellar performances in Tamas (1988) and Mammo (1995).
After she passed away last year post suffering a cardiac arrest, her Badhaai Ho co-star and Bollywood star Ayushmann Khurrana penned a lovely note in her tribute where he revealed that Sikri wished she got to do more work, “I remember when she was boarding an auto rickshaw after the screening of our film, Tahira and I gave her a lift back home and we said ‘ma’am you are the real star of our film’ and she replied ‘wish I get more work.’ Tahira and I were speechless…”

Surekha Sikri was last seen in the 2021 movie Kya Meri Sonam Gupta Bewafa Hai? which was released after her death.