Scarred childhood, fearless choices: The untold story of Sarika’s turbulent journey from child star to Kamal Haasan’s partner

She was barely five when life dealt its first blow — her father abandoned her, and childhood ended before it began. Instead of schoolbooks, Sarika found herself on film sets, playing roles far too heavy for her tender age. By the time she was six, she was enacting traumatic scenes of loss, her tears coaxed with glycerin and harsh words, her innocence bartered for biscuits and applause.

Sarika’s career began in Sunil Dutt’s Hamraaz (1967), where she played a boy — a role symbolic of the burden she carried, prematurely stepping into adult responsibilities. Regret over a stolen childhood still lingers. “There are certain things that come with childhood, which will never come again,” she once confessed.

By 15, she was a leading lady; by 21, she walked out of home with nothing but ₹60 and a car, sleeping in it at night, bathing at friends’ homes, and relying solely on her will to survive. “Sometimes when you really have the need of doing something, you gain that courage all by yourself,” she said.

It was during these uncertain years that Sarika met Kamal Haasan. Their bond, forged on film sets, soon turned into a storm of love and scandal. He was a married man, she was a struggling actress branded “the other woman.” Society condemned them, landlords refused them homes, and tabloids feasted on their choices. Yet Sarika remained defiant.

When she became pregnant with their first child, Shruti, she refused to demand marriage or promises. “This was my need. He was not responsible in any way,” she recalled. Kamal Haasan, moved by her conviction, publicly acknowledged the child, braving outrage in conservative Tamil Nadu. The couple went on to have another daughter, Akshara, before marrying in 1991 — a union Sarika herself admitted could never guarantee permanence.

Their marriage eventually unraveled, and by 2004, Sarika walked away again, this time with her daughters. But through heartbreak and reinvention, she remained unyielding, carving her own path in cinema and life.

Her story mirrors that of Meena Kumari, Bollywood’s “tragedy queen,” but Sarika’s tale carries a different legacy — one of resilience, rebellion, and an unflinching refusal to be defined by abandonment, scandal, or loss.