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Parveen Babi

2005 – Remembering the departed ones
29th Dec 2005 23.50 IST
By Aparajita Ghosh

Year 2005 saw the demise of two renowned Bollywood celebrities and an India-born international filmmaker.

In the very first month of 2005, Bollywood got its first shock with the death of Parveen Babi .

What was more shocking was the way her end came.
Babi had been suffering from schizophrenia and diabetes in her last years. And on January 22, she was found dead in her Juhu residence in Mumbai. Police broke into her apartment after her neighbours informed that milk bottles and newspapers were not collected from her doorstep for few days.

In her heydays, Parveen was paired with Amitabh Bachchan in 8 films. Among her most memorable films are Deewar (1975), Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), ‘Suhaag’ (1979), ‘Kaalia’ (1981) and ‘Namak Halal’ (1982).

Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, who once had a relationship with Babi, is now making a film as a tribute to her.

The biggest loss of the year 2005 was the unexpected death of Sunil Dutt , the towering film personality who commanded enormous respect in the film industry.

Dutt saab passed away after a heart attack on May 25 in Mumbai at the age of 75. In his last days, he was serving the nation as the Union Sports Minister in Congress government.

During his film career, Dutt saab acted in many memorable films including the all-time hit Mother India , ‘Waqt’, ‘Gumraah’, ‘Humraaz’, ‘Milan’, ‘Reshma Aur Shera’ and ‘Padosan’. His last acting assignment was with son Sanjay Dutt in Munnabhai MBBS .

Throughout his life, Dutt saab endorsed many social and charitable causes. After the death of his wife, Nargis Dutt, in 1981 due to cancer, he founded the Nargis Dutt Cancer Foundation. Over the period of two decades till his very last days, Sunil Dutt continued to actively involve in his social work.

His death came as a shock to the entire Hindi film industry. Within hours after his demise the who’s who of Bollywood was at the Dutt residence paying their last tributes to the man who lived an exemplary life.

A few days later, Russian television network telecasted his film ‘Mother India’ as a tribute to the veteran actor.

May 25 was a black day. Besides Sunil Dutt, it also took away the Indian-born filmmaker Ismail Merchant who died of ulcer burst in his abdomen at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in London. He was 68-year-old.

Merchant, whose name is in the Guinness Book for the longest ever movie production partnership with director James Ivory, produced Oscar-winning period films such as ‘Howards End’, ‘A Room With a View’ and the incredibly sensitive ‘The Remains of the Day’.

In their 44 years of partnership, the Merchant-Ivory joint venture won six Oscars, including four for best picture – with German-born screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

A workaholic to the core, Merchant was working on his film ‘The White Countess’ in China with Ralph Fiennes, before his death.

Merhcant’s body was laid to rest in Mumbai, his birthplace.

And the last month of 2005 saw the death of Ramanand Sagar, the showman of the small screen.

Sagar passed away at his Juhu residence on December 12 at the age of 87. He was best known for his mythological serial Ramayana.

Sunil Dutt, Parveen Babi, Ismail Merchant and Ramanand Sagar – they are irreplaceable and their loss will be felt by the admirers of their work. May they all rest in peace.

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