सरदार अख़्तर

Sardar Akhtar was one of Bombay cinema's prominent leading actresses of the late 1930s and early 1940s, particularly associated with Mehboob Khan's productions — she was also his wife. Her roles in Mehboob's social-realist films gave her the opportunity to portray women of complex endurance, and her singing in those films contributed to the emotional texture of soundtracks composed by Anil Biswas and others. Her screen presence was dignified and expressive — suited to the working-woman and village-mother roles that Mehboob specialised in.

Her most significant role is as the mother Radha in Mehboob Khan's Aurat (1940), which she played with emotional restraint and power. She appeared in several Mehboob productions through the early 1940s. After her active years as an actress she remained associated with the Indian film industry in supporting capacities.

Sardar Akhtar's performances in Mehboob Khan's pre-Mother India films are the foundation stones of the archetype that Nargis would make iconic in 1957. She is the 'first Radha' of Hindi cinema's long meditation on the Indian mother.

Mehboob Khan's leading lady of Aurat (1940) — the role Mother India later monumentalised — and his partner in the studio's rise.