Delhi art and theatre personality and well-known critic Minu Bakshi went all the way to London to present to Jamila Massy, the seniormost Indian actress in Britain, the Lifetime Achievement Award during the recent South Asian Film Festival. Jamila’s screen appearance was in the film Sink the Bismarck while she was still a student. After that, she spent decades doing theatre, television, film and radio roles.
Jamila, who has old ties with Delhi, appeared in serials such as Z cars, EastEnders, Coronation Street, Mind Your Language, the world’s longest-running radio serial The Archers and The Jewel in the Crown. She also starred opposite stalwarts such as Madhav Sharma and Saeed Jaffrey. With Jaffrey, she appeared as Mumtaz Mahal in Dilip Hiro’s celebrated stage production To Anchor a Cloud.
For manyyears, she was the Chair of the Afro-Asian Committee of EQUITY, the British actors’ Union, which fought for the rights of ethnic minority artists in Britain.
Petite Jamila was born in Simla, when it was covered under 6 ft of snow. She studied in Auckland House School there. Later, in London, she graduated in Latin, English and Urdu from King’s College. Her husband, Reggie, an ex-Stephenian, is a noted writer and critic based in Wales.