Noted Bengali film director Tarun Majumdar died at a hospital in Kolkata on Monday morning. He was 91.
The nonagenarian director was suffering from kidney ailments for a long time, and was admitted to the hospital on June 14. His condition deteriorated late on Saturday night, and he had to be put on ventilator support. He died around 11:15 am, report agencies.
He alongside Sachin Mukherji and Dilip Mukherji made his directorial debut, under the screen name ‘Yatrik’, with the 1959 Bengali film ‘Chaowa Pawa’ starring Suchitra Sen and Uttam Kumar as the leads.
Majumdar was conferred with the Padma Shri in 1990. He won four National Awards and five Filmfare awards in his career, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021.
He received his first National Award for the 1962 Bengali film ‘Kancher Swarga’. He also garnered wide critical acclamation for his directorial ventures such as ‘Palatak’ in 1963, ‘Nimantran’ in 1971, ‘Sansar Simante’ in 1975 and ‘Ganadevata’ in 1978. He received a National Award, a BFJA Award and a Filmfare Award for ‘Nimantran’ in 1971.
Some of Majumdar’s best works include ‘Balika Badhu’ (1976), ‘Kuheli’ (1971), ‘Shriman Prithviraj’ (1972), ‘Dadar Kirti’ (1980), ‘Smriti Tuku Thak’ (1960), ‘Palatak’ (1963) and ‘Ganadevata’ (1978).
In his decades-long career, he worked with several notable actors such as Uttam Kumar, Suchitra Sen, Chhabi Biswas, Soumitra Chatterjee and Sandhya Roy, to name a few.