Personal Life
Suraiya was romantically involved with actor Dev Anand. The two of them costarred in six films between 1948 and 1951. During the shooting of the song Kinare kinare chale jayen ge of the film Vidya in 1948, a boat capsized and Dev Anand saved Suraiya from drowning. After this incident Suraiya fell in love with him. Dev Anand also responded.
On the sets of the film Jeet 1949, Dev Anand finally proposed to Suraiya and gave her a diamond ring worth Rs 3,000 but her maternal grandmother opposed the relationship as they were Muslim and Dev Anand was a Hindu. Out of this grief Suraiya decided to remain a spinster all her life. They stopped acting together, after her grandmother opposed, so Do Sitare 1951, turned out to be the last film of the pair to release.
Suraiya lived in her apartment on Marine Drive in Mumbai until her death due to cancer in 2004 at age 75.
She was interred at Badakabarastan in Marine Lines, Mumbai.
Suraiya was declared the first Melody Queen (Malika-e-Tarannum) in the sub-continent and much later Noor Jehan was awarded with the same title.
Her greatness can be judged by these comments. "You have put life in the soul of ‘Mirza Ghalib’", were the remarks of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian Prime Minister. The Hollywood legend Gregory Peck was keen to meet Suraiya. In connection with the shooting of some film he happened to visit Bombay (Mumbai) where he was honoured by the great actress by meeting him.
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“The dialectic between change and continuity is a painful but deeply instructive one, in personal life as in the life of a people. To ‘see the light’ too often has meant rejecting the treasures found in darkness.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)