Amazon Woman

Posted February 26, 2002

"Not sure who this giantess is but her gyrations to Amitabh’s sharabi song and striking smile offered us a pleasant respite from the bizarre trip that was NAMAK HALAAL. Has she been in anything else? Distinguishing feature: As tall as Amitabh and much prettier."

Lakshmi Chhaya

Identified by Roopa, February 22nd!

     This actress appeared in TEESRI MANZIL (as "Meena") and in GUMNAAM (as a special guest dancer).  Distinguishing feature: a weird overbite that makes her look like she's in pain whenever she smiles, which she does all the time.

     Roopa writes:

     Well, the woman you call "Meena" that you have pictures of in "Wanted" is Lakshmi Chhaya. I can't tell you much more about her, except that she played middle-range (as opposed to top-range like Helen and Bindu) cabaret dancers, villain's moll, heroine's friend, comedian's girlfriend in several 60s and 70s movies. The striking one that comes to mind is "Mera Gaon Mera Desh", a precursor (in terms of story-line) to Sholay, where she plays a semi-good dancer girlfriend of the villain (Vinod Khanna), who helps the protagonists and dies in the end. She has THREE dance numbers with songs in the film. The first dance and song went more or less unnoticed, but second one is a mela dance "hai sharmaaoon kis kis ko bataaoon" which became hugely popular in its time, and the third was a stupendous hit, "maar diyaa jaaye ke chhod diyaa jaaye". This was probably her most successful role in movies.