A star is­n’t al­ways some­one who stares down at you from gi­gan­tic bill­boards. Some­one who ap­pears on a screen looks like your neigh­bour or rel­a­tive, and qui­etly makes a place in your heart and hip­pocam­pus, is also a star. Sr Jour­nal­ist SP Singh pays a very per­sonal trib­ute to one such star – Surekha Sikri.

I al­ways saw her as a very po­lit­i­cal per­son in her choices. She fea­tured in a movie that was per­haps the most dis­cussed in pol­i­tics at the time – Kissa Kursi Ka (1978). My gen­er­a­tion read a lot about Kissa Kursi Ka but we could only watch it some 45 years af­ter first hear­ing about it. Some­one had put it up on YouTube about three years back – and it was a treat to watch her in­tro­duc­ing a chief en­gi­neer as some­one who has gulped a thou­sand miles of road, sev­eral power pro­jects and bridges: a griev­ance re­dress­ing of­fi­cer who lis­tens to com­plaints all day but is com­pletely deaf; and a cul­tural tzar who lords over artists and teaches mod­ern art paint­ing to mon­keys. “Inn ke liye kala ka ek hee lak­shaya hai: Haku­mat ki khid­mat!”

I was a sopho­more when I en­coun­tered her in a TV se­r­ial that changed some­thing deep in­side many of my age kids. I came from a ‘refugee’ fam­ily, and in my world that had a sin­gle TV chan­nel, no in­ter­net, no phone and a sec­ond-hand Vespa scooter as a dream, watch­ing Tamas (1986) was a uni­ver­sity-level lib­eral arts ed­u­ca­tion with sub­con­ti­nen­tal his­tory as a ma­jor.

We ques­tioned every­thing af­ter that – in­clud­ing our par­ents, grand­par­ents, rel­a­tives. “Did you do this kind of stuff?” we’d ask them. They, in re­turn, told us how they were them­selves the vic­tims. But Tamas was very pow­er­ful. “So, do you know peo­ple who did this kind of stuff?” I did­n’t much fol­low Hindi cin­ema or TV soaps but kept en­coun­ter­ing her.

I would think of the real-life peo­ple she was por­tray­ing. It was as if she would em­body peo­ple I knew so well. Al­ways real. Never an ac­tor.

As Ameena of Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro, Fayyazi of Mammo, then in Sar­dari Be­gum, even in Cot­ton Mary and that Mus­lim woman in Mr. and Mrs. Iyer in early aughts. Some of you might re­call her in a Mun­shi Prem Chand story brought to screen by Gulzar where Hamid brings her that ‘chimt­ta’ be­cause she keeps burn­ing her hands while flip­ping ro­tis. It is em­bar­rass­ing to say this at my age but I re­mem­ber sob­bing, and then, notic­ing that I am all alone at home, cry­ing bit­terly and then wail­ing loudly.

I am sure she must have done many other far more won­der­ful things, but I will for­ever re­main grate­ful to her Rajo in Tamas! And to her role in Mammo! Farida Jalal was in front and at the cen­tre of that story and, of course, won awards for her per­for­mance, but please watch Surekha Sikri’s Fayyazi – Mammo Jalal’s In­dian sis­ter. Hers is the per­for­mance that lingers in your mind.

I have never watched Ba­lika Vadhu, and might not at all, but we will al­ways have a bit of her in our lives, each from a char­ac­ter we were mes­merised by. Every time I watched her in a movie or a tele­vi­sion se­r­ial, I would think of the real-life peo­ple she was por­tray­ing. It was as if she would em­body peo­ple I knew so well. Al­ways real. Never an ac­tor.

Surekha Sikri will al­ways be around, as long as we have ac­cess to screens! For those of my gen­er­a­tion, we don’t even need that! I will never for­get her face when Hamid brings the chimtta!