Who can forget the naive and endearing village girl Durga Roy from Satyajit Ray’s iconic film Pather Panchali? Actress Uma Dasgupta, who immortalised the role in the movie, has passed away at a private hospital in Kolkata, following a long battle with cancer. According to reports, she is survived by her daughter.
Although 1955 drama film, which also marked the legendary filmmaker’s directorial debut, gained her worldwide fame, Uma preferred a rather private life to stardom. A teacher by profession, she never did any other movie after Pather Panchali (which roughly translates to Song of the Little Road). It is said that Ray first noticed during her stage performance as a child artiste in a school function. Thereafter, he got in touch with her school and family, and eventually offered her the role of Durga.
Speaking about how the Oscar-winning director was impressed by Uma’s intelligence and integrity on the set of Pather Panchali, his son Sandip Ray told PTI, “I was told by father how instinctive and natural she was before the camera and gave the perfect shot in a single take. Whatever father used to tell her during rehearsal and briefing before a shot, she was so intelligent, it did not need further prodding or prompting as the camera rolled. And father would tell us later on that Uma took to the character like a fish in water.”
Also starring Subir Banerjee, Kanu Banerjee, Karuna Banerjee, Pinaki Sengupta, Chunibala Devi and Tulsi Chakraborty in pivotal roles, Pather Panchali is a film adaptation of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s 1929 Bengali novel of the same name. Said to be made on a meagre budget of ₹1,50,000, Pather Panchali was nominated for ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ award at the 28th Academy Awards, but did not win. Nonetheless, it became the first movie after India’s independence to gain both national and global acclaim. Pather Panchali was honoured with the ‘Best Human Document’ award at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival, while on home turf it won the National Film for ‘Best Feature Film’ in 1955. It’s the first film in The Apu Trilogy, followed by Aparajito (1956) and The World of Apu (1959).
