TV industry colleagues remember Puja Gayen as a happy and sincere person

Many in the Bengali television industry have been shaken by the alleged death by suicide of assistant director (

costume

)

Puja Gayen

on Tuesday night. Her friends and colleagues, who remember the 26-year-old from

Burdwan

as a jovial and sincere human being, are yet to fathom why she took the extreme step.

Actress Gulshanara Khatun, who had met Puja on the sets of Prathama

Kadambini

, said they had some wonderful moments together. “We would pull each other’s legs and have loads of fun on the sets. I still can’t understand what made her take such a step,” she said, adding that while shooting during the pandemic, she would ask Puja to take special care of her costumes. “Every day, Puja would sanitise the clothes before bringing them to me,” she added.

Costume stylist Riturupa Bhattacharya, under whom Puja had worked, said she was very sincere and hardworking. “Though I didn’t know much about her personal life, she seemed

happy

most of the time,” she said.

According to her colleagues, Puja, a divorcee, was in a steady relationship for the past four-five years. “She never blamed her ex-husband for the separation though she never revealed the reason behind the step,” a colleague said, adding that she seemed happy in her current relationship.

Actresses Rupsha Mondal and Solanki Roy, who worked with Puja in different projects, said they knew her as a very happy individual. “I’ll remember her as a girl who was always serious about her work and went about it with a smile on her face,” Solanki said.