Sulakshana Pandit

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Sulakshana comes from a musical family originating from Pilimandori Village in Hissar (now Fatehabad) district of Haryana state. The famous classical vocalist and legendary Pandit Jasraj is her uncle. She started singing at the age of nine. Her elder brother Mandheer Pandit (who was earlier a music composer in the 1980s with Jatin Pandit as the duo Mandheer–Jatin) was her constant companion in Mumbai; they performed and sang on stage until Sulakshana became a leading playback singer through many of their live concerts with legends such as Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar.

She has three brothers (Mandheer, Jatin and Lalit Pandit) and three sisters (Maya Anderson, Sandhya Singh and Vijayta Pandit). Her father Pratap Narain Pandit was an accomplished classical vocalist. Her nephew Yash Pandit is an Indian television actor. Nieces Shraddha Pandit and Shweta Pandit are playback singers. Her cousin is playback singer Hemlata.

Sulakshana has never been married. Actor Sanjeev Kumar turned down her marriage proposal,because he never got over his heartbreak after actress Hema Malini rejected him to marry her frequent co-star Dharmendra.

She fell on hard times when she stopped getting work. In 2002, she was living in an apartment with no furniture and that required serious repairs.She was forced to put it up for sale. It remained on the market for several months, until her former leading man Jeetendra came to her rescue by convincing his brother-in-law to purchase the flat. From the proceeds of the sale, she was able to pay off her debts and purchase two apartments.Her sister Vijayta Pandit and brother-in-law, music composer Aadesh Shrivastava, sold her house; now she lives with them.Aadesh indicated that he was composing a devotional album for Sulakshana, but he failed to do so before his death.She broke her hip bone when she fell in the bathroom. Even after four surgeries, she still can't walk properly and is dependent on painkillers. She confines herself to a room in her sister's house and has full-time domestic help looking after her.

Sulakshana makes rare public appearances and recently gave a full length radio interview wherein she spoke about her acting & singing career to RJ Vijay Akela in July 2017.

Sulakshana's career as heroine spanned the 1970s and early '80s. As a leading lady she worked with Jeetendra, Sanjeev Kumar, Shammi Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna, Vinod Khanna, Rishi Kapoor, Raj Babbar and Rakesh Roshan. Her acting career began with the suspense thriller Uljhan in 1975, opposite Sanjeev Kumar.

In Anil Ganguly's Sankoch (1976), which was based on the novel Parineeta, she portrayed Lolita. Some of her popular hit films are Uljhan, Hera Pheri, Apnapan, Sankoch, Khandaan, Raaz, Thief of Baghdad, Chehre Pe Chehra, Dharam Kanta and Waqt Ki Deewar.

She acted in a movie Bandie 1978, where she was paired opposite Uttam Kumar.

Sulakshana had a singing career alongside her acting one. She began her singing career as a child singer singing the popular song "Saat Samundar Paar se" with Lata Mangeshkar in the 1967 film Taqdeer. Thereafter, she recorded with famed musicians such as Hemant Kumar and Kishore Kumar. She sang in Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Oriya and Gujarati. Some of her popular songs are listed in the Filmography section below.

In 1980, she released an album titled Jazbaat (HMV), wherein she rendered ghazals.

She sang duets with accomplished singers such as Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Shailender Singh, Yesudas, Mahendra Kapoor and Udit Narayan. She sang under music directors such as Shankar Jaikishan, Laxmikant Pyarelal, Kalyanji Anandji, Kanu Roy, Bappi Lahiri, Usha Khanna, Rajesh Roshan, Khayyam, Rajkamal and several others.

In 1986, Sulakshana was one of the singers to perform at the Royal Albert Hall in London to celebrate the "Festival of Indian Music" Concert along with acclaimed Music Directors Laxmikant Pyarelal and singers Manhar, Shabbir Kumar, Nitin Mukesh and Anuradha Paudwal.

Her voice was last heard in an alaap in the song "Saagar Kinare Bhi Do Dil" from the movie Khamoshi the musical (1996), which was composed by her brothers Jatin and Lalit.