Achala Sachdev Dead at 92

Achala Sachdev is dead at the age of 92. Popular as ‘Zohra Jabeen’ in Waqt (1965), where she played Balraj Sahni’s wife, she had started her career as a child. She also played the role of Kajol’s grand-mother in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995).


Born in Peshawar in 1920, Achala made her film debut with Fashionable Wife (1938), and acted in over 130 Hindi films. She died in distress circumstances ignored by most people in Bollywood. The coy smile and lovely eyes gave way to pain and abject sadness, as she was hospital in a nondescript hospital in Pune.
Achala Sachdev married British national Clifford Douglas Peters and had made Pune her home, a good 40 years go. She was known to be quite a charitable person, donating genersously for the welfare of her city in her own way but it is sad that that very own city abandoned her in trying times Her husband passed away in 2002. After that, it was all downhill for her, living in a two bedroom Konark Estates apartment near Poona Club, with just one attendant taking care of her.

On September 8, 2011, Sachdev suffered a fracture in her femur when she went into her kitchen to get a glass of water. After that she was discharged soon only to be admitted later for multiple emboli in her brain which caused quadriplegia – total paralysis of the limbs and torso.

A common friend said that only a few members from the industry expressed their interest in getting touch with her, some of them being producer-director Yash Chopra, Ekta Kapoor actor Shyam Chadha’s son and Vidya Sinha who would visit her once in two or three days. RIP Achala Sachdev.