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Bollywood’s famous actress Zohra Sehgal is still remembered for her films and unmatched personality, but even before earning a name in films, Zohra was in discussion about her decisions.
Zohra had taken a decision that was neither common nor acceptable to the society or his family at that time.
Zohra married a Hindu youth before the partition of India and Pakistan. His name was Kameshwar Sehgal. He was eight years younger than him. The two met at a dance school established by Uday Shankar in Almora, Uttarakhand.
Zohra was born on 27 April 1912 in Saharanpur in a Muslim family to Mumtazullah Khan and the result of Begum.
According to The Indian Express, Zohra fell in love with Kameshwar in his first meeting. In an interview on her 100th birthday, Zohra told that she met Kameshwar in 1940. He was a painter from Indore and was taking training in the same dance school.
Zohra also said this,
He was very handsome and talented. I liked a Burmese hut painting that he made from rice and fungus. He was younger in age, but for me he had the same sense.
Zohra had already become a famous dancer. She had traveled to many countries and was counted among the well-known classical dancers of India. After this, both of them went to each other about two years and then got married in 1942. This was the time when Quit India Movement was going on in the country.
Zohra’s husband Waeshwar Sehgal was an artist, painter, dancer, choreographer and scientist.
Zohra said, “We had court marriage in Allahabad. Then the railway lines and roads were closed, so we had only one baraati.”
Please tell that it was not easy for Zohra to get married because she was from a traditional Muslim family and her husband was a Hindu. At that time this thing was shocked to the people.
Recently, in an interview to Hutterfly, Zohra’s Parnatin and actress Ayesha Raza Mishra told,
He (Zohra) decided to get married, he was also a Hindu who was eight years younger than him, and he herself from a Conservative Muslim family. Think of a girl at that time to say to her father that I have fallen in love and I want to get married… and then tell that the boy is a dancer, is young in age and is from other religion. This was a big step for our family.
After marriage, Zohra and Kameshwar opened a Performing Arts Institute in Lahore named ‘Jores’.
Let me tell you that it was an example of Hindu-Muslim unity in a way, but in a short time the atmosphere in the area started deteriorating.
After which Zohra and Kameshwar suddenly had to go to Bombay (now Mumbai) with their child. Both of them joined the Earth theater there. It is from here that Zohra got the real stage of acting.
Zohra was awarded the Padma Shri (1998), Kalidas Samman (2001), Sangeet Natak Academy Fellowship (2004) and Padma Vibhushan (2010).
In an interview to Hindustan Times in 2012, Zohra said about her husband,
He was talented in every task, artist, homeopath, dancer and cook… but could not become famous in any one.
Kameshwar died in 1959. At the same time, Zohra lived a long life and died in 2014 at the age of 102.
Zohra acted in Bollywood and British cinema for eight decades. His major films include ‘Nicha Nagar’, ‘Adhikari’, ‘Dil Se’, ‘Veer-Zara’, ‘Savariya’, ‘Chinese Kam’, and ‘Bend It Like Beckham’.
Zohra also acted in the TV shows ‘The Jewel in the Crown’, ‘Tandoori Nights’ and ‘Amma and Family’.