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Miss Shefali

Indian Bengali actress

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ84479721
Source-derived summary

Miss Shefali, also known as Arati Das (1944 – 6 February 2020) was an Indian Bengali actress and dancer who was recognized for her work in Bengali cinema. She had worked with film director Satyajit Ray in classics like Pratidwandi and Seemabaddha. She is known as the Queen of Bengali cabaret.

Early life and background

Arati Das was the youngest of three sisters from a Bengali Hindu family of Narayanganj, East Bengal (now in Bangladesh) which migrated to India during the Partition of Bengal. She started performing cabaret at the age of 11 at Firpo's hotel and later in the Grand Hotel to earn for her family and then there was no looking back.

Career

Arati Das had made her film debut in Bengali film named Chowringhee, in which she acts with actors like Supriya Devi, Uttam Kumar, Utpal Dutt, and Biswajit. Besides films, she also acted in several stage plays and theater. Her plays include Samrat O Sundari, Saheb Bibi Golam, and Ashlil. She was also a writer. Her autobiography Sandhya Rater Shefali (Shefali of the Evenings and Nights) was published recently.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Miss Shefali” as indian Bengali actress. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Miss, Shefali and Indian.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1944, 2020—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1944-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Miss, Shefali and Indian providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Miss Shefali”, the useful work is to connect “indian Bengali actress” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q84479721. VIAF identifies the subject as 172147118232426341514. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944 and 2020.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Miss Shefali”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Miss Shefali primary sources, Miss Shefali archive and Miss research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Miss Shefali”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Miss Shefali” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.