Rajit Kapoor recalls Surekha Sikri was ‘never given great part since she wasn’t beautiful’: ‘It upset her a lot’

Actor Rajit Kapoor has recalled late veteran actor Surekha Sikri was never given a ‘great part since she wasn’t beautiful in the conventional sense’. He also added that it upset her a lot’ though she later ‘stopped caring about it’. He also said that she never ‘really got her due as a performer’.

Surekha Sikri died on Friday morning following a cardiac arrest at the age of 75. The actor’s last rites took place at a crematorium in Santa Cruz. Surekha had suffered her second brain stroke in September last year. Her first brain stroke was in 2018. The actor was married to Hemant Rege till his death in 2009. She is survived by her son Rahul Sikri.

Speaking to SpotboyE, Rajit Kapoor said, “Unfortunately, not many people knew what a firehouse she was, that her theatre colleagues knew. I also know that good looks came in the way so often with her. She was never given a great part since she wasn’t beautiful in the conventional sense and that used to upset her a lot in the middle. But soon she stopped caring about it. A performer like her needs to be given a salute.”

Recalling Surekha playing his grandmother in Mammo, he said, “I think she was one of the most fantastic actors we have had in the country and I feel bad since I don’t think she ever really got her due as a performer. She only came into the limelight pretty late with Balika Vadhu and became a household name. But she could do any role and the smallest part given to her would shine since she was a performer. From the small role in Saradari Begum to playing my nani (grandmother) in Mammo, I just saw the ease and effortlessness with which she performed and still made it starry.”

Surekha Sikri is known for her performances in Mammo, Badhaai Ho and the popular television show Balika Vadhu. The wheelchair-bound actor had turned up to accept her best-supporting actress National Film Award for Badhaai Ho in 2019.

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The actor made her foray into television in the 1990s with Sanjha Chula and went on to feature in popular shows like Kabhie Kabhie, Just Mohabbat, CID, Banegi Apni Baat and Balika Vadhu. She was last seen in Netflix’s anthology Ghost Stories (2020), in the story directed by Zoya Akhtar.