Actress Nanda with her elder sister Meena
Meena and Nanda, aged fourteen and eleven respectively, are the two eldest and prettiest of the late Master Vinayak’s brood of seven children (four girls and three boys) whom he left practically destitute with their widowed mother, when he died suddenly on August 19, 1947.
With typical Maratha grit and something of their father’s guts and talent, these two girls have toiled at school and at home to achieve the capacity and the means to maintain themselves and their mother and brothers and sisters.
Meena is in the tenth standard and Nanda in the eighth at the school they attend in Pedder Road. At home they snatch time from endless domestic chores to learn dancing from their tutor, Manna Master. Frail as they look, they have been tough enough to stand the treble strain. Nanda even found time, and energy to act in four pictures, bit roles but they brought in much-needed money:
Now they propose to make a dancing tour from which they hope to make enough money to finish their schooling and carry on with their dancing lessons. (June – 1953)
