You Ask, I Tell

The rise to stardom and tragic fall of one of the heroines of Indian film. Hansa Wadkar (born Ratan Bhalchandra) was one of Maharashtra’s best known stage and screen personalities. By the time she was married — to a much older family friend and impresario when she was just 15 — she had already starred in nine or ten movies and was becoming a name in the film world. Supporting her family on her earnings, her brother sick with malaria, and both parents having taken to drink, life was not easy for the young woman. But Hansa was not only beautiful and immensely talented, she was tough, wilful, capricious and headstrong. Her autobiography, Sangtye Aika published in 1970 and translated into English here for the first time, created a sensation for its frankness and boldness. It was later made into a film, Bhumika, by the legendary director Shyam Benegal and starred Smita Patil in the title role.