Geeta Bali - Personal Life

Personal Life

Bali’s parents were well educated. They lived in Amritsar before 1947. Her father Pandit Kartar Singh, known as Philosopher, was blind. He was a Sikh scholar and kirtan –Sikh devotional music– singer. Her maternal grandfather Takhat Singh (1870-1937) was the founder of Sikh Kanya Mahavidyalay - boarding school for girls, the first of its kind established in 1904 in Ferozepur. The parents encouraged their daughters Harkirtan (Geeta Bali) and Hardarshan to learn classical music and dance, horse riding and gatka fencing. Fundamentalist Sikhs socially boycotted the family as they did not like the girls performing in public and they picketed theatres.

On 23 August 1955 she married Shammi Kapoor, with whom she was working in the film Coffee House. They had two children, a son (Aditya) and a daughter (Kanchan).

She died on 21 January 1965, having contracted smallpox while shooting a Punjabi film Rano based on a novel Eik Chadar Maili Si by Rajinder Singh Bedi. He was directing the film and she was the producer. Bedi, devastated by the untimely death of Bali, abandoned the project. He wrote later that he had put the novel on her burning funeral pyre.

She had a son and and daughter. She is the aunt of Yogeeta Bali.