Images of Leela Naidu from Anuradha (1960) and Trikaal (1885)

She was known as one of the most beautiful women in the world:

Last month while checking my blog dashboard, I noticed skyrocketing hits searching a post I’d done a while back on The Householder (1963). Closer inspection revealed to me that the  search engine term that referred people to the blog was Leela Naidu.  It was then I read the news that she had died on July 28, 2009. Since I posted a few pictures of Naidu in The Householder post, people were coming to look at her.  Then I went ahead to look for more images of Naidu online and  I noticed that there weren’t too many, though Pitu Sultan has a few great ones HERE.   So as a public service, I went ahead to take some screen caps of this lovely woman from two more of her films.  I saw Anuradha (1960) from the beginning of her career and Trikaal (1985) from the end of her career.  In each of these films she played the suffering wife and looked and acted equally beautiful in both.

Here are a few images of Leela Naidu from Anuradha.  She begins the film as a famous singer:

Anuradha Roy (Leela Naidu), a noted radio singer and daughter of a rich man, falls in love with an idealistic doctor, Dr. Nirmal Chowdhary (Balraj Sahni), who serves the poor in the distant village Nanda gaon. After the marriage and a daughter, she realizes the gravity of the choice of living in a village, it is then she has to decide between her love and her love for city life. (source)

After marriage to a doctor (Balraj Sahni) assigned to work in a rural village, Anuradha (Naidu) loses here fame and stands around looking gorgeous, waiting for her husband to pay some attention to her:

Extra credit in Anuradha:

There’s  a brief apperance by David, who is looking very young here.

Twenty five years after making Arunadha (1960), Leela Naidu starred in Trikaal (1985) , where she continued to look glamorous.

Trikaal (1985) (Past, Present and Future) is an Indian movie written and directed by Shyam Benegal, setin Goa during the early 1960’s (pre liberation) Period. The film starred yester years actress, Leela Naidu, in a comeback role after many decades. Set in 1961 Goa, when colonial rule of Portuguese was on its last gasp,  the movie revolves around the life and tribulations of a fictional Goan Christian family called “Souza Soares”. (source)

Extra credit in Trikaal: You get to see Naseeruddin Shahas well as Kunal Kapoor. No not that Kunal Kapoor, but the Kunal Kapoor who is Shashi Kapoor’s son, playing Captain Rebeiro.  Can you see a resemblance? I believe I can.

There were also some great subtitles.  I like seeing the use of “paining”:

Anti European comments are always a pleasure:

And, best of all, the use of the term spinster always makes me smile, since I am a spinster myself! Jai spinsters!

Naidu is pictured here above with Neena Gupta and Anita Kanwar.  There was also an appearance by playback singer Alisha Chinai, who played a singer of all things. 

The song performed was a nice love ballad in what I thought might be Portuguese, but is more likely in Konkani, but I couldn’t find it online, so allow me to substitute a completely unrelated Alisha Chinai song since I admit I love it, and I know you probably will too. So here’s the interval to this post:

~ INTERVAL ~

Teekay, the interval is finished, back to Trikaal. Naidu’s Dona Maria Souza-Soares  raises Milagrenia as her own child, even though she’s the child her husband fathers in one of his many affairs.  Kuta! The classy Dona Maria shares both her grief and wisdom over the loss of her husband with Milagrenia.

The two women share seances and finally have a mystic vision leaving them at peace with their grief and confusion:

I was able to find some prophetic images from both films where we can imagine Naidu is speaking on the end of her own life on this earth:

And perhaps talking about what’s going on with her now:

And if you’d still like to see more of Leela Naidu…

Rest in peace Leela Naidu.

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For a more in depth look into Naidu’s life, read Leela: A Patchwork Life, by Naidu along with Jerry Pinto, reviewed here by G Sampath in his article The importance of being Leela Naidu for  DNA.

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