Veteran actress and singer Sulakshana Pandit breathed her last on November 6 in Mumbai at Nanavati hospital due to cardiac arrest. The news of her demise was confirmed by her brother Lalit Pandit. He also revealed that her funeral will take place today, November 7 in Mumbai. Sulakshana made a space for herself in the industry with her debut with ‘Uljhan’ (1975) opposite Sanjeev Kumar and went on to appear in films such as ‘Sankoch’ (1976), ‘Hera Pheri’, ‘Apnapan’, ‘Khandaan’, and ‘Waqt Ki Deewar’. However, she stepped away from the limelight as reportedly she was traumatised by Sanjeev Kumar’s early demise. Sanjeev Kumar and Sulakshana were rumoured to be dating after the ‘Angoor’ actor was rejected by Hema Malini who he had proposed marriage to. However, author Hanif Zaveri who has written Sanjeev’s biography ‘An Actor’s Actor: The Authorized Biography of Sanjeev Kumar’ revealed that he wasn’t in a relationship with Sulakshana. Rather, it was one sided love from her side. Zaveri revealed in an interview with Vickey Lalwani very recently, where he was accompanied by Sanjeev’s niece Jigna Shah, “It’s true that he was involved with Nutan and then Hema Malini but after that it was one sided. For instance, Sulakshana Pandit wanted to marry him but he was not interested. She also took him to temple to get married but he said no because he had this intuition that he won’t live long so he did not want to spoil someone’s life.”Sulakshana was in love with him and when he passed away at the age of 47 in 1985, she was shattered. Just right after that, her mother also passed away. These losses back-to-back deeply affected her and she went away from the movie business and the limelight. Sulakshana had once said, “These deaths had a lasting impact on me. They took a toll on my health. I was mentally disturbed and shaken for the longest time.” The singer, actress also never got married after she couldn’t marry Sanjeev Kumar.In 2006, her sister Vijayta and brother-in-law Aadesh Shrivastava brought her home to take care of her and tried to make her feel better emotionally after all the trauma she went through post these deaths.
