Remembering Priya Rajvansh on her 17th death anniversary.

Priya Rajvansh (1937–27 March 2000), born Vera Sunder Singh, was a film actress, who is known for her performance in Hindi films like, Heer Raanjha (1970) and Hanste Zakhm (1973), amongst a handful of films she did during her career.

While still in London and 22 years old, one of her photographs, clicked by a London photographer, somehow reached the Hindi film industry and Chetan Anand, (brother of Dev Anand and Vijay Anand) in 1962, who cast her in his next film, Haqeeqat (1964), which remains one of the most noted war-films in India. Soon she was in a relationship with her mentor, Chetan Anand, who had just separated from his wife; Priya was many years younger and very beautiful and the two grew close to each other. Thereafter she starred only in Chetan Anand’s films, where she was involved in every aspect of film-making from story to scripting, lyrics, and post-production. Chetan, too, never made a film without her as the central character. Despite being a highly talented actress, her anglicised accent and western femininity did not click with the Indian audience.

Her next film, Heer Raanjha came out only in 1970, where she acted opposite the rage of that time, actor Raaj Kumar, and the film was a hit. Then came Hanste Zakhm, arguably the finest film of her career, in 1973. Her other noted films were Hindustan Ki Kasam (1973), and Kudrat (1981), where she had a parallel role with Hema Malini in the lead. Her last film Haathon Ki Lakeeren came out in 1985. After that her film career ended and she died in 2000. Follow Bollywoodirect