Sadhana – Actress and cabaret dancer of old Malayalam movies

Sadhana is a retired actress of Malayalam movies, best known for glamorous roles. She has also been featured as a cabaret dancer in numerous movies since late 1960s, and has shared screen space with top actors like Prem Nazir, Ummer etc. She was active in film scene during 1969–1981, before she moved away from limelight. She is among those unfortunate artists of Indian cinema, who had a glorious era while being associated with films with a lot of fans around and later had to spent life in penury. For the last few years she lived in extreme poor life conditions and has been missing for the last couple of years. With age 70+ nobody knows if she is alive or no more.

Sadhana was born into a Muslim family in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. She was the eldest of six children. Her father was a railway officer. She started off her career with Telugu plays as a stage actress and later joined film industry. She reached Chennai with big dreams. She received her first break through Prem Nasir starrer Rest House released in 1969. She played a cabaret dancer in the movie, and after the success of the movie got type casted in similar kind of glamorous roles. Same year she shared screen space with the actor once again for Danger Biscuit.

When lead Malayalam actresses were reluctant to do skin show and glamorous roles on big screen, Sadhana belongs to that group of actresses who readily accepted those kind of pivot roles without any hesitation. Thus she got opportunity to share screen space with almost all lead actors of 1970s, mostly in dance sequences. She did numerous vamp roles, negative roles etc on Malayalam screen, which gave her limited success throughout 1970s.

Unlike other glamorous actresses of yesterdays she also couldn’t get character roles during mid-ages and later, which could have helped her to sustain in the film industry. Some of her popular roles are Rest House, Danger Biscuit, CID Nazir, Shiksha, Thettu, Lanka Dahanam, Panchavadi, Ladies Hostel, Maani Koya Kurup, Taxi Driver, Miss Mary, Love Marriage etc. She retired from movies in 1986 after which she fully disappeared from limelight and friends’ circle. Her last film ‘Ithra Maathram’ was released same year. She was also featured in a few Tamil movies.

She is missing since 2018

Sadhana during her old days

It was in 2016 when she came to limelight once again, after a post written by Allappey Ashraf went viral. Sadhana was married to a car broker N. K. Ram and lived her last days in a rental home in an isolated village Budur in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. They have no kids. She was suffering from age related ailments. She also faced physical abuses from her husband, and had mental problems too.

She’s absconded for the past few years. Her neighbours say, her husband took her to Tirupati in around 2018 and left there. In her husband’s words she passed away while at Tirupati and Devaswom board completed her rituals considering her as an orphan. In neighbours’ words, she is not easy to believe that she is still alive. There are also rumours that she was admitted at a hospital in Tirupati.

Sadhana – Some interesting and less known facts

Sadhana in ‘Uttaraa Swayamvaram Kathakali Kanuvaan’ song from Danger Biscuit

1. She was featured aside Prem Nazir in the evergreen Malayalam song, Uttaraa Swayamvaram Kathakali Kanuvaan. She was paired with the actor for Danger Biscuit, in which this particular song was featured.

2. Right from debut she appeared in numerous movies starring Prem Nazir.

3. Her sister Saleema has acted in few Tamil movies.

4. Through her film journey she managed to bring up her younger siblings, and provide them better lives. However she lost her way somewhere, and during her old age she got isolated from them.

5. Character artist Usha Rani is her only friend from filmy industry. It was through Usha whole world came to know about the miserable life of Sadhana during her old days.

6. When her news about extreme poor conditions appeared in social media, many people came forward with financial aids. Some old friends sent her money on monthly basis. However she is not receiving money right now.