Sitara Devi’s death brought to mind the year 1948 when she was the star performer at a weeklong celebration by the Indian Air Force. Sitara was about 30 years old then and in the prime of life. The week observed by the IAF marked the anniversary of the parachute regiment. To attract people for the para drop at the Agra Club ground and other functions, officers of the Force and the COD went through the narrow streets of the city proclaiming the concert by Sitara Devi.
Handouts of the danseuse in various poses were displayed on military trucks and jeeps and even housewives in purdah and street urchins got to know about her name and fame. After the para drop, which saw thousands flocking to see it, and the hockey match between airmen, who had parachuted down, and the ground IAF staff, it was time for the show.
Sitara Devi did not disappoint and everyone who saw the performance came back full of praise, except for an old man who grumbled that he couldn’t understand her gymnastic movements on the stage. He was obviously ignorant of Kathak gestures but a housemaid was not so dismayed. She started styling herself as Khas Khas Khulasa Begum Phool Singh Sitara Begum. A young Nawab was impressed by her figure and employed her but on condition that she shortened the name or by the time he finished pronouncing it the tea would have gone cold in the kitchen and also his passion for her. Undaunted, she opted for Sitara Begum (as Devi would not have been in accordance with her religion). Pretty as she was, she had many affairs and died a washed out woman in 1972, some 40 years before her idol, Sitara Devi, whose original name was Dhanno long before Hema Malini adopted it in the film “Sholay”.
