India, Nov. 10 -- V eteran playback singer and actor Sulakshana Pandit died on Thursday at 71 following a heart attack, closing a luminous chapter in one of India's most musically gifted families. Sulakshana's velvety voice defined the tender, romantic tone of 1970s Hindi cinema. She also charmed audiences on screen, becoming, as her niece actor-singer Shweta Pandit notes, "the only other female artiste after Nargis (Dutt) ji and Suraiya ji to be both a professional playback singer and a leading actor". Remembering her aunt, Shweta says Sulakshana "never received the recognition she truly deserved". "She was immensely talented but she was too sensitive and honest for the business," she adds. Born in Madhya Pradesh, Sulakshana grew up in a home where music wasn't just a passion, it was the family language. Her father, Pratap Narain Pandit, served as the state's chief musician and was a respected Hindustani classical vocalist. Her brothers Jatin and Lalit would later form the celebrated composer duo Jatin-Lalit, while Mandheer Pandit (Shweta's father) mastered the tabla, and her sister Vijayta Pandit followed her into singing and films."After our family moved to Mumbai in the late 1950s, her voice quickly found its stage. She recorded her first song at nine and performed with legends like Kishore Kumar," Shweta recalls. By the mid-1980s, Sulakshana quietly withdrew from the spotlight. "She got tired of how things worked," Shweta says. "At that time, artistes didn't have the management support they do now. She needed that guidance but never had it." In later years, Sulakshana battled health issues after a fall left her bedridden: "She was actually struggling with depression, something rarely spoken about then." To her niece, she will always remain the first superstar of their family's cinematic journey. "She carried the Pandit family's name into films and was my guru," Shweta says, adding, "Once, Shammi Kapoor ji heard my name and smiled, saying, 'The Kapoor family is the first family of cinema, and the Pandit family is the first family of music'. That was the biggest compliment."...