Veteran Film Director Tarun Majumdar died at the age of 92

Acclaimed film director Tarun Majumdar who is famous for making movies based on the struggles of Middle-class family died in a hospital in Kolkata on 4th July. He was 92 years old.

Tarun Majumdar was admitted to the SSKM hospital on 14th June due to old age ailments and kidney problems. It has been informed that he had been critical for quite sometime but his health deteriorated in the morning of 4th July. He his heart rate and his pulse rate had dropped and he wasn’t responding to any kind of treatment. He died at 11.17 am. It was also informed that he had infections in his lungs for which he was shifted to ICU on 3rd July where he was put on ventilator.
 

Writer-director Tarun Majumdar occupies a unique position in Indian cinema for deftly blending aesthetics of ‘art-house’ cinema with the tropes of mainstream fare to make movies that entertained the masses as well as the hard-nosed audience. Tarun Majumdar, a four-time National Award winner and Padma Shri recipient, was born on 8th January, 1931, in Bogra (now in Bangladesh). He was the son of a freedom fighter. He studied at Scottish Church College in Kolkata and was known to be a follower of the Leftist ideology. Majumdar depicted rural life with warmth and celebrated their way of living. In his career spanning six decades, he made nearly 40 movies, and prominent among them are Balika Badhu (1967), Kuheli (1971), Ganadevata (1979), Dadar Kirti (1980), Bhalobasa Bhalobasa (1985), and Alo (2003).

Majumdar cast popular stars such as Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen only in a few of his films while he worked with the then newcomers such as Moushumi Chatterjee, Tapas Paul, Debashree Roy and Mahua Roychowdhury. Tarun Majumdar used music to portray the emotions on the screen. He did it beautifully. Majumdar portrayed the main characters of his movies with a certain “innocence” while negotiating with life. His characters were seldom crude or negative. His movies were full of characters who were happy, joyful and good-at-heart. Yet, his movies compelled the audience to think. That is how he triumphed.

By-
Aritri Ghosh
Amity University, kolkata