Just speaking about his singer-actress sister Sulakshana Pandit makes Lalit Pandit emotional. “To say something about Sulakshana Didi, I would really not know where to start. She has such diverse dimensions to her life: she is a sister, she is a mother to us, and she has been a successful actor acting with top actors of the 70s,” he said.
“Dilip Kumar saab introduced my sister to the who’s who of the industry,” recalls Lalit Pandit on Sulakshana Pandit’s 70th birthday
Sulakshana, reveals Lalit, is a trained singer. “She is the only one who has been trained properly by our father Pandit Pratap Narayan for singing. Let me start from the early days of Sulakshana Didi when she was a child singing artist in Calcutta. She must have been 9 or 10 years old when at some function in Calcutta she sang in front of Dilip kumar Sahab. He was very happy to hear this girl singing so well and it was Dilip Sahab who advised our father to bring Sulakshana Didi to Mumbai for a better future. It was my father’s brave decision to take Sulakshana Didi and eldest brother Mandheerbhai to Mumbai, who was also trained by our father in playing table,” recalled Lalit Pandit.
This was during a time when the Pandit parivar was going through hard times. “There was no place to stay in Mumbai and no money,” he said. “Pitaji took both Sulakshana Didi and Mandheerbhai to Dilip Sahab’s house to meet and explained the tough times. Dilip Sahab was most gracious as he was known to be, and he kept our family in one of his homes.”
Lalit reveals that Dilip Kumar also helped Sulakshana to find a foothold in the Hindi film industry. “He introduced her to powerful people and would take her to his shootings and usually make her sing songs at his shoot to big producers and directors. Meanwhile, Pitaji started to earn a little by taking up classical singing lessons with students,” he said.
Then began Sulakshana’s struggle. “Sulakshana Didi started getting shows but there was no way to break in the industry for playback singing which she wanted to do so badly. She would meet the music directors but mostly to no avail for leading playback. She sang a few lines for a Laxmikant-Pyarelal song with Lataji (‘Saat samundar par se gudiyon ke bazaar se’ in the film Taqdeer). Finally, composers began to notice Sulakshana. The struggle was on but she was gradually being noticed and liked by people. I must say here that Sulakshana Didi was a very beautiful girl and then a lady! She had a personality and though wasn’t educated beyond initial schooling in Hindi, she was an intelligent person,” he said.
Then Kishore Kumar came into Sulakshana’s life.
Recalled Lalit, “I am not sure how she got introduced to Kishore da in the mid-60s. Kishore da proved to be a big help at that time. He made her a part of his shows and his tours. The monetary situation started to get better and Pitaji decided to get the rest of the family to Mumbai. With shows, Sulakshana had managed to buy a small flat and the family was reunited in Mumbai. It was here that I was born. I am, out of all my brothers and sisters, the only one born in Mumbai.”
After Lalit’s birth, Sulakshana attained renewed fame. “She started to grow as an artist and as a person and started touring with top male artists,” he said. “Rafi Sahab met her in one of the recordings and he too took her to Bahrain and other places for his shows. She was working very hard to make life better for all of us and was very dedicated and hardworking. It was Kishore da who suggested and explained to her that it would be difficult to make a mark as a playback singer as long as the reigning Mangeshkar sisters were there. This was an evident fact at that time for all female singers who were trying to make it as playback singers. Kishoreda was aware of this fact and it was he who gave my sister the first playback singing chance under his music direction for his film Door Ka Rahi. The song was ‘Beqarar dil tu gaye ja’. It was a beautiful composition and Kishore da sang only one antara himself and made Sulakshana Didi sing two antras of the song. The song was a big success and made a difference to her to be noticed as a new voice!”
The suggestion that Sulakshana try her luck as an actress came from Kishore Kumar. “It was Kishore da who suggested to Sulakshana Didi that she should try to become an actress and sing her own songs in her films. Sulakshana Didi took up the challenge and adhered to Kishor da’s idea and started preparing to be an actor. She was first signed by director Raghunath Jhalani for Uljhan which released in 1974. This was a female-oriented film and it was a super hit with Sanjeev Kumar and Sulakshana Didi also sang her own song for the film. This transformed her life and career and she started getting many offers for films.”
Suddenly, the Pandit family was affluent. “We could see our life changing as Sulakshana Didi bought a house for my brother in Juhu and also bought a big house for herself and the rest of the family. She also started to pay attention to all her younger brothers and sisters and enrolled them in the best of the schools at that time. She packed me off to a boarding school which proved to be a boon in my life! I am the only person in the family who managed to move ahead in education,” said Lalit Pandit.
He added, “I would read the papers in school and would keep a check on how Didi’s newer films were doing while in Panchgani. She got a tag of being a lucky heroine as all her films would do a jubilee. We know what that means! More films and films. She would have it in her contract to sing all the songs being picturised on her. At that time, the producers would willingly agree to the idea but one could see that the composers, though being okay to make her sing, were getting and feeling pressurized. Nevertheless, she was also singing many songs now for different composers for other films and not only her own. She sang many popular songs for Bappida in films which had super hit music. She also won her Filmfare for the song ‘Tu hi sagar hai tu hi kinara’ composed by Khaiyyam Sahab and written by Kaifi Azmi.”
Continued Lalit Pandit, “She went on to do films with top actors Rajesh Khanna, Rishi Kapoor, Sanjeev Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna, Jeetendra, Shatrughan Sinha, Feroz Khan, Shashi Kapoor and also worked with top directors of her time. It was always fun she says when our family’s fortunes changed and she would be singing duet songs with Kishore Da and he would tease her saying that it was his idea and that he was very happy about how she had worked it out!!Kishoreda was brilliant, I must say!”
Lalit is forever indebted to Sulakshana. “She was the initial force that brought the family out from a difficult position and gave us all a chance to move ahead in life,” he said. “Had it not been for her, there would be no Vijayta, our younger sister, and no Jatin-Lalit. To us Jatin and Lalit, it was her initial advice that got us to move into the film industry as successful composers. It was Sulakshana Didi’s idea that we go to Majrooh Sultanpuri Sahab and team up with him for our musical journey. She was also my early teacher in music and would guide me very well to sing and become a successful musician and then a composer. She is a mother and a sister to me.”
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