Zohra Sehgal thought she was ‘ugly’ and not sexy, yet taught us how to live life: ‘She tried hard to attract attention’
“Mujhse kaha hai abhi toh main jawan hoon. Sharam nahi aati? Itni buddhi aurat se kehte ho ‘Abhi toh main jawan hoon’ recite karo. Magar main tumse zyada besharam hoon (I was told to recite ‘Abhi toh main jawan hoon’. You should be ashamed for asking to do such a thing from an old lady. But I’m more shameless than you).”
Zohra Sehgal jokingly said these w0rds on the stage of Delhi Theatre to an audience that was in splits seeing her wit, with the veteran actor giving the loudest laugh herself. Sehgal was 100 years old at that time, and still had the spark. She replicated the same emotional depth when she recited Faiz’s “Mujhe Pehli Si Mohabbat” in a documentary M.K. Raina and Anant Raina titled Zohra Sehgal: An Interview 2012, the video clip of which continues to remain viral on the internet.
Zohra Sehgal with Saeed Jaffrey, Shelly King and Rita Wolf in the film Tandoori Nights. (Photo: Express Archives)
Zohra Sehgal taught the world that life isn’t just about breathing, but living it too. The ‘Laadli of the Century‘ as labelled the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF)-Laadli Media Awards, Sehgal didn’t let age dampen her spirit at all. And the aforementioned documentary tried to dig out the fuel that kept her running even after seven decades in business.
Zohra Sehgal straddled the worlds of theatre, films, television and dance with great success. At an age when girls were married off, Sehgal defied the purdah and chose her passion for dance over settling down in early 1930s. She eventually served as a dance director at Prithvi Theatre from 1945 to 1959.
Sehgal told The Hindu in 2018, “I enjoyed it much. (Also) I never got the main roles because I wasn’t beautiful and sexy but I hung in there, till in 1962 I got a theatre scholarship to the U.K. I went and never returned for 25 years.”
Yes, she always believed she was “ugly”, a confession she’s made in her interviews time and again. “You are meeting me now, when I’m old and ugly, you should have seen me when I was young and ugly,” she once told the interviewer. Interestingly, Scroll wrote in 2017 that Sehgal envied her ser’s (Uzra Butt) fame and attractiveness. Her daughter and danseuse Kiran Segal in the biography Zohra Sehgal: Fatty wrote due to this complex, Zohra Sehgal “tried very hard to be charming and attract attention.”
Zohra Sehgal with her daughter and danseuse Kiran Sehgal. (Photo: Express Archives)
Kiran, in an excerpt from the biography, wrote, “Once in Delhi we had been invited to a reception. The evening was very enjoyable, meeting lots of friends one had lost touch with. When we returned home, I exclaimed, ‘Oh, what a lovely evening it was!’ To which, she immediately replied, ‘Kya lovely evening mera to kisi ne notice hi nahi liya! (What lovely evening, no one took any notice of me!) I just burst out laughing, it was too funny.” She was happiest at the centre of attention.
Zohra Sehgal was born as Zohra Mumtaz. (Photo: Express Archives)
Zohra Sehgal never shied away from talking about her flaws and yet finding a way through the audience’s heart. Spending 14 years in theatre, she appeared in nearly 20 movies also. In fact, her longevity can be summed up in the fact that she worked with four generations of Bollywood’s Kapoor family – from Prithviraj Kapoor to Raj Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor to Ranbir Kapoor.
Zohra Sehgal chose roles that were sheer reflection of her real life aura. These include Bhaji on the Beach (1992), Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), Bend It Like Beckham (2002), Dil Se (1998), Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (2001) and Saawariya (2007) and Cheeni Kum (2007).
Sanjay Leela Bhansali had once said, “To call her a livewire is an understatement.”
Zohra Sehgal and Shammi Kapoor. (Photo: Express Archives)
Sehgal tried her hand at international cinema in the UK and television too. At the age of 92, she performed a play titled Ek Thi Nani which was staged in Lahore for the first time. It featured her and her ser Uzra Butt. Its English version was held at UCLA under the name A Granny for All Seasons in 2001. She also featured in British television classics like Doctor Who and the 1984 miniseries The Jewel in the Crown.
Her life is an open book of breaking stereotypes at every juncture. Even her marriage to painter Kameshwar Sehgal was unconventional. Kameshwar was eight years younger than her and a Hindu. Their union faced considerable opposition in 1942.
Zohra Sehgal, Amitabh Bachchan and Tabu in a still from Cheeni Kum. (Photo: Express Archives)
Zohra Sehgal kept playing hide-and-seek with age. Her iconic picture cutting her birthday cake, more like butchering it with a huge knife is specimen how she took age in her stride. The recipient of Padma Vibhushan succumbed to age-related problems at 102.
Looking back, it was only her passion for acting that kept her on her toes till her last days. “Acting is the only thing I enjoy apart from kissing my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren,” she once told IBN.com. “I have hardly ever refused a role. If I get a bad role, I take it up and work on it,” she added.
Well, it was one more thing that she enjoyed the most in life, apart from acting. “Sex! Sex! And more sex!” she told The Guardian in an interview dated 2013.
Remembering Zohra Sehgal on her 110th birth anniversary!
