Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal recalls collaborating with the Surekha Sikri in three films and reveals that she was a thorough perfectionist in this first-person account...
She was an outstanding actress; I have worked with her in three films--'Sardari Begum', 'Zubeida', and 'Mammo'. She was brilliantly trained at the NSD and was one of their star pupils when she came out; at the time Ebrahim Alkazi was the director.
She performed in some very brilliant productions of the NSD repertory. I saw her in a play in Delhi and that’s how I thought I should take her in films here. She had a huge reputation as an actress in theatre. As you know, she has delivered some brilliant performances in cinema too, but what happens in cinema is that the people who are written about are largely the ones who play starring roles. Surekha never gave a bad performance in her life. All her performances were outstanding!
Apart from that, she was a thorough professional and that too the last cross of the T, in the sense that when you took her in a film and told her what her part was and her lines, she would be there for the shoot not only on time but with the lines absolutely pitch-perfect and her costume and makeup in place. You didn’t have to worry about her at all. At that time you didn’t quite understand and appreciate the quality of the actress she was and also her discipline.
