Some time back, I saw information on a couple of sites, including Cineplot (via an old, reprinted article), which said that V. Shantaram’s third wife, Sandhya, was the sister of his second wife, Jayashree. It seemed a little strange to me, but considering that the story about V. Shanataram and his three wives always seemed strange anyway, I thought, OK, why not? But from some recent investigation (as well as a comment that appeared below that article at Cineplot), it became apparent to me that this was never true. Unfortunately, I know I have made at least one reference in this blog to that strange situation that never really existed, and at some point I will have to try to root out that reference (wherever it is) and any others that might have occurred. But in the meantime, to set the record straight…
Sandhya’s real older sister was named Vatsala Deshmukh, and I believe she performs the lovely mujra below, which was in the film Toofan Aur Diya.
Vatsala also was in other V. Shantaram-produced films, including at least two that he directed, Navrang, and (as Harvey pointed out to me), Pinjra (which I also reviewed here several years ago). In that film, Vatsala actually played the older sister of Sandhya’s character, too.
Vatsala also had a daughter who became a pretty famous Marathi actress, Ranjana Deshmukh. Unfortunately, after some success in films in the ’60s to the ’80s, Ranjana ran into a lot of bad luck, including getting into a very bad car accident in 1987 and having a lethal heart attack in 2000. But Vatsala and Sandhya are still both alive – at least according to all the information that I have seen (knock on whatever) – and hopefully, they can still get in touch with each other at least once in a while to talk about interesting family memories.
P.S. A note eight years later: RIP, Vatsala Deshmukh, who died on March 12, 2022, at the age of 92. well, that is sad… I did not know about this for a few days, but one night when I checked my blog stats, I saw that this post had suddenly gotten a huge number of views. And I said to myself, “Oh, no, I think I know why that must be.” And it was.
I trust that Sandhya is still with us. She is obviously very reclusive, which is perfectly all right. But it would be nice to hear something that let us know that she is OK. Though there is a superstitious part of me that says maybe I shouldn’t even type that…
Dances on the Footpath 