Nanda, the famous and beautiful actress of her time, was born on 8 January 1939. He died on 25 March 2014 at the age of 75. Nanda has worked in hit films like ‘Jab-Jab Phool Khile’, ‘Gumnaam’ and ‘Prem Rog’.
The story of Nanda’s entry into Bollywood is very interesting. Nanda’s father Vinayak Damodar was a successful actor and director of Karnataka and Marathi cinema. When Nanda was 5 years old, she reluctantly became a part of one of her father’s films. But fate had other plans, Nanda’s father died before the film could be completed! This sudden accident completely changed Nanda’s life. All the responsibilities of the family now fell on the young shoulders of Nanda. At this time Nanda was only ten years old when she started her film career.
Nanda was honored with a special award by former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for the Marathi film ‘Kuldevta’ directed by Dinkar Patil. Nanda also worked in a total of 8 Gujarati films. In Hindi, Nanda acted as a heroine in her uncle V Shanta Ram’s film ‘Toofan Aur Diya’ in 1957. After that, Rami had no time for his personal life in Nanda’s films.
It is said that she was in love with director Manmohan Desai. Desai also wanted her. But extremely shy Nanda never gave Manmohan a chance to express her love and they got married. After Manmohan’s marriage, Nanda also got confined to her life. But, after some time his wife passed away. After this Manmohan again gave the message of love to Nanda. Nanda accepted it. Nanda got engaged to her in 1992 at the age of 53. But perhaps fate had something else in store. Manmohan Desai died in an accident just two years after their engagement. There was never a reconciliation between the two and Nanda remained unmarried.
In 1959, Nanda played the role of Rajendra Kumar’s blind sister in the film Chhoti Behen. His performance was liked a lot by the audience. Her next film ‘Dhool Ka Phool’ with Rajendra Kumar was a superhit. But, the sister’s roles were not leaving her. Nanda once again played the role of Dev Anand’s sister in the 1960 film Kala Bazaar. Nanda did maximum 9 films with Shashikpur. She did films with him like ‘Chaar Dewari’ in 1961 and ‘Mehndi Lagi Mere Haath’ in 1962. ‘Jab Jab Phool Khile’ proved to be a blockbuster hit. Its songs are still heard a lot even today!
She also played a negative character in ‘Ittefaq’ (1969) with Rajesh Khanna, but the audience did not like her look. Recently a remake of this film was also made! However, after the year 1972-1973, Nanda’s films started flopping one after the other and thus Nanda separated himself from the industry! Nanda’s last film was ‘Prem Rog’.
However, after the death of Manmohan Desai, Nanda became quite lonely. She didn’t talk much to anyone. Among her special friends were Mala Sinha and Waheeda Rehman, with whom she used to spend some time. He died in 2014 at the age of 75! But, cinema lovers still remember him.
