Nafisa Ali is an admired actress in Indian cinema and is known for her acting prowess in the films Life in a Metro and Guzaarish. She debuted with the 1979 release Junoon and cemented her position in the Bollywood industry with that film. According to a report, Junoon had great importance in Nafisa Ali’s life in more ways than one. As per the report, it was during the shooting of this film that she met her husband, polo player and Arjuna Awardee Colonel Ravinder Singh Sodhi. Nafisa told a magazine in an old interview, “The battle scene in Junoon was shot in my husband’s regiment, so I knew all the officers. He was the only bachelor. When he came to Kolkata for a horse show and polo match, I got to know him better. And when I went to Delhi for the Junoon premiere, he wooed me with horses. I loved horses, so the whole romance was around them.”
Despite being head over heels in love with each other, theirs was not a love story free from all obstacles. They came from different regional backgrounds, that is RS Sodhi was Sikh, while Nafisa Ali was Muslim and had an age gap of 14 years between them. They faced stiff opposition from their families. The couple went ahead and had a registered marriage in Kolkata, followed by a Sikh one at the residence of Maharani Gayatri Devi in Delhi.
On the professional front, after not receiving many projects in acting, Nafisa Ali decided to make her debut in politics. She contested the 2004 Lok Sabha elections from South Kolkata and lost to Mamata Banerjee. In 2009, she again tried for a political stint and contested Lok Sabha polls from Lucknow on an SP (Samajwadi Party), ticket replacing Sanjay Dutt.
Sanjay Dutt was replaced after the Supreme Court disqualified him based on an earlier conviction. She then rejoined the Indian National Congress and then the All India Trinamool Congress founded by Mamata Banerjee.
Nafisa was diagnosed with stage 3 peritoneal and ovarian cancer in November 2018. The Life in a Metro actress was declared cancer-free in 2019.
Comments
0 comment