Shashikala
Indian actress
Shashikala Saigal (née Jawalkar; 4 August 1932 – 4 April 2021), better known by her first name, was an Indian film and television actress, who played supporting roles in hundreds of Bollywood films beginning in the 1940s.
Early years
Shashikala Jawalkar was one of six children born in Solapur, Maharashtra to a Hindu Bhavsar Shimpi caste Marathi speaking family. By age 5, she had already been dancing, singing and acting on stage in many towns in Solapur district. When Shashikala was in her pre-teens, through ill luck, her father became bankrupt, and he brought his family to Bombay (now Mumbai), where they thought that Shashikala, the best-looking and most-talented among his children, could find work in movies. For some time, the family lived with friends and barely survived, while Shashikala wandered from one studio to another looking for work. She earned in bits and pieces till she met Noor Jehan, the reigning screen queen.
Noor Jehan's husband Shaukat Hussain Rizvi, was making the movie Zeenat then, and included Shashikala in a Qawwali scene. Rizvi gave her a supporting role alongside Noorjehan and Dilip Kumar in the 1947 film Jugnu. She acted with Dilip Kumar again in the 1950 film Arzoo.
She worked with Shammi Kapoor in film Daku (1955).
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Shashikala” is indian actress. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Shashikala, Indian and actress, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “indian actress” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7490569. VIAF identifies the subject as 231882155. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1932, 2021, 1947 and 1950.
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.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Shashikala”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Shashikala primary sources, Shashikala archive and Shashikala research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Shashikala”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Shashikala” 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.