Google paid tribute to the legendary actor-dancer Zohra Sehgal by dedicating a special doodle to her that perfectly captures the screen icon’s joie de vivre.
On this day in 1946, “Neecha Nagar”, starring Sehgal, was released at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Palme d’Or prize. The movie, according to Google is Indian cinema’s first international critical success.
Illustrated by artist Parvati Pillai, the doodle shows the late actor’s sketch replacing the O of ‘GOOGLE’ and showing one of her iconic dance step from the song ‘Jiya Jale’ from Mani Ratnam-directed “Dil Se”.
Sehgal was born on April 27, 1912 in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh in a traditional Muslim family, and grew up in Chakrata.
Sehgal started her career as a dancer with Uday Shankar in 1935. She had appeared in many Bollywood films as a character actor as well as in English language films besides television series and plays.
As a dancer, she performed across Japan, Egypt, Europe and the US. She choreographed for a few Hindi films as well, including classics like Guru Dutt’s “Baazi” and the dream sequence song in Raj Kapoor’s film “Awaara”.
Sehgal was honoured with India’s highest honours the Padma Shri (1998), the Kalidas Samman (2001), and the Padma Vibhushan (2010) for her contribution to art and cinema. She died in Delhi in 2014 at the age of 102.