City mourns Ruma Guha Thakurta’s demise

Eminent singer and actress Ruma Guha Thakurta breathed her last on Monday morning. She was 84. She is survived by her sons, Amit Kumar and Ayan Guha Thakurta, and daughter, Sromona Chakraborty. Speaking to us on Monday afternoon, Sromona said, “She was suffering from age-related ailments and passed away peacefully in her sleep. On Monday morning, my sister in-law went to serve her tea and discovered that she had passed away.”
Ruma started her career very early. She was 10 when she joined Indian People’s Theatre Association and started her career as a child artiste with Amiya Chakravarty’s Jwar Bhata. It was during the course of her career at Bombay Talkies that she met Kishore Kumar and married the legendary singer in 1951. During her stay in Mumbai, she, along with Salil Chowdhury and Shailendra, started the Bombay Youth Choir. After returning to Kolkata, she, along with Salil Choudhury and Satyajit Ray, started the

Calcutta Youth Choir

in 1958. The versatile actress and singer that she was, she acted in several films, including Abhijaan, Amrita Kumbher Sandhane and more, in the course of her long career. The films she had done playback singing for included Lukochuri, Tin Kanya,

Anthony Firingee

and more.
Eminent personalities from Bengal, including the film and music industries, paid their last respects to the actress-singer at her residence on Monday.
Starting the Calcutta Youth Choir was a huge initiative: Sandip Ray
Rumadi was my mother, Bijoya Ray’s, sister, Sati Devi’s daughter. Hence, we shared a very close bond. Even when she left for Mumbai after getting married to Kishore Kumar, she kept in touch. She returned to start the Calcutta Youth Choir — a stupendous initiative that she managed almost singlehandedly at that time. My father (Satyajit Ray) was a founder member of the choir. I remember going to the choir's performances every now and then. She worked with my father too in Abhijan. He also used her rendition of Baaje Koruno Sure in Tin Kanya. He really liked her as an artiste — both as an actor and as a singer. Rumadi was a great personality. She was very affectionate. It’s a sad day and she will always be missed.
As a singer, I found her very pure: Buddhadeb Dasgupta
Ruma 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. I can remember one instance when she made me an omelette at singer Dilip Kumar Roy’s house. I would never
forget the day. Despite the fact that I really wanted to work with her, we never got the chance.