Meena Kumari was the renowned 'Tragedy Queen' of Hindi cinema; and in her case, the legend and the reality merged into one larger-than-life image.

Like the despairing Chhoti Bahu of Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam, Meena drowned her sorrows in drink. These excesses caught up with her and when she passed away, her 40th birthday was still five months away.

Born into a subsistence level family, Meena struggled hard throughout her life to find longing happiness but always found it ephemeral. She married famed director Kamaal Amrohi, and became a star soon after.

Her immense fame led to a separation. Meena enjoyed the freedoms of being a single successful woman but could not curtail the immoderation. Her health teetered on the edge from the late 1960s onwards, and Meena breathed her last at Mumbai's St Elizabeth nursing home on March 31, 1972.