“She had been affected by issues arising from a second mind stroke,” the actor’s agent Vivek Sidhwani advised PTI. The primary stroke had occurred in final September.
Regardless of the medium, Sikri approached each half with sincerity and sensitivity; her appearing at all times knowledgeable by an intense but elegant aesthetic. One in all her three nationwide awards got here for ‘Mammo’ (1994), well-deserved for her finely-grained depiction of insecurity and anxiousness that the half required. The opposite two got here in Govind Nihalani’s telefilm, ‘Tamas’ (1988) and director Amit Sharma’s ‘Badhaai Ho’ (2018).
Her cantankerous rustic mother-in-law in ‘Badhaai Ho’ ranks amongst her most interesting performances and endeared her to a brand new era of filmgoers. “Her dialogue supply, gestures, voice modulation and understanding of characters was superb. And who can neglect the glint of these eyes?,” asks Arvind Gaur, director, Asmita theatre.
Delhi-born Sikri learnt and honed her craft at National School of Drama and was a valued member of the repertory firm throughout its excessive midday. Fellow actor MK Raina remembers getting blown away by her artwork. “I had the privilege of appearing along with her for the NSD repertory manufacturing, ‘Kabhi Na Chhode Khet’. There’s a scene when her son dies. I had by no means seen something like this — that sort of vary of appearing. Once more in Ebrahim Alkazi-directed John Osborne’s play, ‘Look Again In Anger’, she was merely, wow. Sadly, there aren’t any movies of her work from these days. Even in a tv serial like ‘Balika Vadhu’, you could possibly see she was a category aside,” says Raina, a yr junior to her at NSD.
Two of her much-remembered performs are ‘Aadhe Adhure’ and ‘Sandhya Chhaya’, the place she acted with Manohar Singh, one other titan of Delhi theatre. Sikri acquired the Sangeet Natak Akademi award in 1989.
Famend movie director Shyam Benegal remembers her as a “flawless” performer. “Her theatre coaching had made her an especially disciplined actress. If you went on the units when she was appearing, you didn’t have to inform her. You gave her the scenes and she or he labored it out herself. She knew which costumes she needed to put on, obtained her make-up achieved and was completely prepared with the strains of the character she was portraying… In a few takes, you’d have a efficiency of the best high quality,” Benegal advised TOI over the telephone.
Other than ‘Mammo’, he directed her in ‘Sardari Begum’, ‘Zubeida’ and ‘Hari Bhari’, the place Sikri was first-rate because the household matriarch who has to combat old-age illnesses and play choose, jury and peacemaker to the quibbling bahus on the similar time.
Raina says that off stage, Sikri was “happy-go-lucky”. Throughout a short telephone interview final yr, she had revealed an impish aspect to this reporter. Sikri spoke of skipping class as soon as at NSD to observe the film, ‘These Magnificent Males In Their Flying Machines’, and getting caught…We have been suspended for every week from attending lessons,” she had stated.
Not many know that Sikri had additionally translated Bertolt Brecht’s ‘The Threepenny Opera’. “She had nice command over each Hindustani and English,” says Raina. He summed up, “Meticulous, pondering and questioning, she was one in all India’s front-ranking actors who has left an excellent legacy in theatres, in movies and on tv.”
Source link
