Bollywood star spent her final days alone, battling illness, poverty, and legal troubles

Far beneath the glossy surface, beyond all the glitz and glam, lies a layer in Bollywood stained by the blood, sweat and tears of countless people who are now long forgotten.

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While the “hard work” of those at the top is often spotlighted and hailed, the gruelling struggles of many others rarely reach the public eye, simply because they didn’t succeed. They are unfairly judged as “failures” and subsequently ignored. But history does not belong to the victors alone; it belongs to those who couldn’t finish the race as well. And one such star, who once soared higher than any of her peers but eventually died a forgotten figure, was veteran actor Sadhana Shivdasani (known mononymously as Sadhana), whose life was nothing short of a tragic tale.

“Death proved to be a salvation for her,” late actor and talk show host Tabassum emotionally told SCREEN when Sadhana passed away at the age of 74 in 2015. Tabassum wasn’t wrong. Not only had Sadhana’s health significantly deteriorated by then, but she was also struggling financially, with no one to support her. Both the industry and her so-called “fans” turned a blind eye to her, and Bollywood's “Mystery Girl” took her last breath in desolation. Tabassum revealed that only a few from the industry, friends and relatives came to bid her farewell.Born on September 2, 1941, in Karachi to a Sindhi family, Sadhana’s family moved to India after the Partition in 1947, when she was just six years old. “We moved from Delhi to Benaras to Calcutta before settling down in Mumbai in 1950,” author-columnist Dinesh Raheja quoted her in a 2012 article for Rediff.com. “Main apne mohalle ki dada hua karti thi (| was a bully in my neighbourhood). | was a tomboy. | made the best maanja, and | would fly kites while an aide of mine would hold the firki.”