Movies

Balraj Sahni (born Yudhishthir Sahni; 1 May 1913 – 13 April 1973) was an Indian film and stage actor, who is best known for Dharti Ke Lal (1946), Do Bigha Zameen (1953), Chhoti Bahen (1959), Kabuliwala (1961) and Garam Hawa (1973). He was the brother of Bhisham Sahni, noted Hindi writer, playwright, and actor.

Early life

Balraj Sahni with his wife Damayanti, 1936.

Balraj Sahni, Rattan Kumar and Nana Palsikar in Do Bigha Zamin (1953)
Sahni was born on 1 May 1913 in Rawalpindi, Punjab, British India. He studied at Government College (Lahore) and Gordon College. After completing his master's degree in English Literature from Lahore, he went back to Rawalpindi and joined his family business. He also held a bachelor's degree in Hindi. Soon after, he married Damayanti Sahni.

In the late 1930s, Sahni and his wife left Rawalpindi to join Tagore's Visva-Bharati University in Shantiniketan in Bengal as an English and Hindi teacher. It is here that their son, Parikshit Sahni was born, when his wife Damayanti was earning her bachelor's degree. He also collaborated with Mahatma Gandhi for a year in 1938. The next year, Sahni, with Gandhi's blessings, went to England to join the BBC-London's Hindi service as a radio announcer. He returned to India in 1943, and his wife died in 1947 at age 26. In 1951, he remarried, to writer Santosh Chandhok; they remained married until his death in 1973. While at the BBC, Sahni worked alongside George Orwell.