Buddhadeb Dasgupta mourns Ruma Guha Thakurta’s demise

Though they never worked together, veteran director Buddhadeb Dasgupta was eager to work with Ruma Guha Thakurta. Mourning her demise on Monday, the director said she was a great human being, a brilliant actor and singer. “What I liked about her the most was her straightforwardness. And as a singer I found her very pure. She had the ability to evoke emotions with her singing. In her entire acting career, she has worked in many films, but in only a few of them she had worked as a typical heroine. But whatever character she got, she portrayed brilliantly,” he added.

He remembered a chance meeting with the actress-singer at the house of singer Dilip Kumar Roy. “Dilip Kumar Roy was also my relative and Ruma used to go to his house to learn music. We had a conversation and since the domestic help was absent that day, Ruma made me an omelette. I would never forget the day,” Buddhadeb remembered. Seeing her acting skills, Buddhadeb always wanted to work with the actress and use her skills in his films. However, due to various circumstances that never happened.

The veteran Bengali actress, best known for her roles in Satyajit Ray films such as Ganashatru (1989) and

Abhijan

(1962), breathed her last at her Ballygunge residence in Kolkata on Monday morning. She was 84. The funeral is being held on Monday evening. She was born in Kolkata in 1934, but went on to make a career in the then Bombay. It was during her stint with

Bombay Talkies

that she met and later married legendary singer Kishore Kumar. They had a son, Amit Kumar, before getting divorced in 1958.