Uma Sashi(1915-2000)
- Actress
- Music Department
One other earliest stars of the New Theatres' of Calcutta, Uma was born
in 1915 in a poor Brahmin family of Calcutta. Her father was Nilmani
Chattopadhyay and her mother Radharani. Nilmani hailed from Dacca, East
Bengal, British India but was settled in Calcutta. As a child Uma
received very little formal education by reasons of poverty but
received training in music and dance from an early age because this was
easier to fetch money for the impoverished family. Her first teacher in
music and dance was Satkari Ganguly. It was Ganguly who took Uma to the
stage, where she started work as a group dancer, working in Minerva,
Alfred and finally in Russa Theatres. After sometime, she played minor
roles in the stage as well and soon became part of a touring group from
Calcutta to different parts of undivided Bengal like Chittagong, Cox's
Bazar performing on the stage. It was from Russa Theatres' that she was
chosen to act in films. Her first screen appearance was in Bangabala
(1929) in the role of Subarna. It was a silent film. She had to quit
the stage because the authorities would not allow their paid staff to
work in films. The other films that followed were Bigraha (1930) where
she played Ranima and Abhishek (1931). These were silent, too. Around
this period, Umasashi started recording songs for Columbia. At a later
stage when she was doing sound films, she shifted to Hindustan Musical
Products and remained their exclusive singing artiste. In gramophone
records for both Columbia and Hindustan, she was credited as Smt. Uma
Devi. Her first sound film was Dena Paona (1931) where she acted in a
crowd scene of Gajan and also sang a song Baba Apan Bhola Moder Pagal
Chhele along with Miss Abhabati. She was trained for the song by Pankaj
Kumar Mallick. The next year she played Rami in Chandidas (1932) of New
Theatres and thereby earned for herself a permanent place in the
Bengali screen apart from being recognised as a major leading lady of
New Theatres. Old cine lovers still remember her performance and her
portrayal of the suffering Rami. Soon she became known to the rest of
India with her Hindi films, including the Hindi version of Chandidas
(1934) which had immortal songs like Prem Nagar Mein, a duet of Uma
with K.L. Saigal. Bishnumaya (1932),Ruplekha (1934), Bhagyachakra
(1935), Dhoop Chhaon (1935), Daku Mansoor (1934),Desher Mati (1938),
Puran Bhagat (1933), Kapalkundala (1933), Bhagyachakra (1935), Anath
Ashram (1937), Dharti Mata (1938) were her major movies and her major
heroes included Durgadas Bannerjee, K.L. Saigal, Pahadi Sanyal,
Prithviraj Kapoor and others. Mr Guru Prasad Deb of the Sovabazar
Rajbari, an attorney by profession visited Uma at her residence and at
the studio and after a long courtship they decided to tie the knot. It
was not an easy job for an actress in those days to take such a bold
decision because social acceptance was never to be expected. In fact
Uma had to wait for quite sometime to allowed into the ancestral house
of the Deb's. With the blessings of Mr. B.N. Sircar, proprietor of New
Theatres, she settled down to marital bliss. Her husband was already
married and Uma left the glamour world to share the house of her
husband with his first wife. This was in 1939, when her contract with
N.T. was not over yet. She was gladly given the necessary permission to
leave by Mr.Sircar. In time she became the mother of three sons
Gouranga Narayan, Soumendra Narayan and Sourendra Narayan and a
daughter kanaklata. For the rest of her life Uma remained outside the
film world although at an advanced age, she did give interviews to the
print and the electronic media and even attended film functions once or
twice. In fact her first public appearance was at a BFJA award giving
function, where she was the chief guest. She received the Hero Honda
Award as the oldest living film legend in 2000. Her last days were not
very comfortable and suffering from the effects of a fractured hip
bone, she developed complications and breathed her last on the 6th day
of December, 2000. Her daughter Kanaklata had predeceased her and she
was survived by her sons and their families.With her passing away, a
great link with the past was snapped. The news of her death appeared in
the newspapers some days after she passed away because her family did
not want any publicity.