Calcutta Diary

November 3, 1973 LAST MONTH, the court dancer took the final bow. It was a Sunday morning, rain was lashing the streets and lanes; Sadhona Bose, that heart-throb of the Indian screen in the distant 1930s, passed away in a run-down Calcutta apartment building. For most of the recent years, it was a wretched existence for her; the death was equally wretched. She died a pauper, uncared for, a lonely, prematurely old woman whom the world had forgotten. There was a small funeral procession; few cared to join, fewer even enquired who it was who was dead. No flowers for the court dancer of yester-year: she did not belong any more.