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Achala Sachdev is best remembered as "zohrajabeen", the beautiful wife of Balraj Sahni in B.R. Chopra’s Waqt (1965). He crooned for her the Manna Dey-sung "Ae meri zohrajabeen." And no one blushed better than her. Waqt was a landmark in Achala’s career. So riveting was her performance in the film that men would often come to her and claim that they had taken their wives to see the film several times, but just couldn’t get them to blush as coyly as her. Achala began her career playing celluloid mother to heroes older than her when she was only in her twenties. After her debut in Fashionable Wife in 1938, she went on to work in more than 200 films. In Kashmir, she played mother to actor Govinda’s father Arun Ahuja. In her first scene, she had to fall down the stairs with grief after hearing of her son’s death. She had to weep profusely, which she did without any effort. Although she played several roles, she was hopelessly typecast as the suffering mother. In Bambai Ka Babu, she played Dev Anand’s mother. Blind and ailing, she fails to realise that Dev was an imposter, who had come home in a Kulu village to make amends for killing her son accidentally.
However, in Hare Rama, Hare Krishna and Kora Kagaz, Achala plays a different kind of mother. In Hare Rama, Hare Krishna as a high-society woman in London, she has constant fights with husband Kishore Sahu. They finally separate and she returns to India with the daughter (later Zeenat Aman) leaving the son (later Dev Anand) behind with the father. In Kora Kagaz, Achala as Jaya Bhaduri’s neo-rich mother is instrumental in being the cause of the daughter’s separation from the latter’s middle-class husband Vijay Anand. In Julie, too, Achala was quite unlike the usual role she used to perform. She plays hero Vikram’s very ritualistic mother who does not approve of non-vegetarian food-eating Julie (Laxmi) coming to their home. She tries to purify the place by sprinkling Ganga jal. She even gets to sing the bhajan "Sacha naam tera…" with daughter Reeta Bhaduri. However, always a favourite of the Chopras, Achala featured in many of their films like Waqt, Hamraaz, Aadmi aur Insaan, Daag, Chandni and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge(DDLJ). In DDLJ, she plays Kajol’s grandmother, who is perceptive enough to realise that the bride is not happy with her father’s choice of the boisterous, rural rich spoilt-brat fiancé for her. Yash Chopra always considered Achala his lucky artiste. And when DDLJ (1995) broke all records (it is still showing at a theatre in Mumbai), he paid her an amount that left her flabbergasted and she thought they had put a few extra zeroes in the cheque by mistake! But he graciously said they also respected her seniority. Thus Achala gave a new dimension to tragic roles and met with a fair amount of success. During her twilight years, she settled down in Pune and was involved in charity work. Her son Jyotin from her first marriage lives in the US. Achala died after ailing for the past seven months. She was 92.
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In Mera Naam Joker,
Achala played Raj Kapoor’s mother, who stitches clothes to pay the
school fees of her son, who is studying in an expensive school. She
weeps copious tears when she learns that he has decided to join the
circus, a profession she detests as she had lost her husband, who had
died working there.