Balika Badhu director Tarun Majumdar passes away

Renowned filmmaker Tarun Majumdar passed away in a Kolkata hospital on Monday due to kidney problems and other old-age ailments. He was 92 years old.

Known for portraying compelling stories highlighting the life of middle-class families, he is one of the noted figures in Bengali cinema. He has introduced celebrated actors like Moushumi Chatterjee, Mahua Roychoudhury, Ayan Banerjee, and Tapas Paul to the industry.

An official of the state-run SSKM Hospital said that Majumdar passed away at around 11.17 AM today. "He has been critical for some time, and his condition deteriorated further this morning. His heartbeat and pulse rate had dropped. And he had stopped responding to any treatment".

He was admitted to the hospital on June 14. After developing a secondary infection in the lungs, the director was shifted to the ICU on Sunday and put on a ventilator. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed condolences and described his death as a "big loss to the entertainment world".

Born in 1931 in British India, Majumdar made his directorial debut along with Sachin and Dilip Mukherji. The trio went by the name Yatrik. Their first project was the 1959 film Chaowa Paowa. They began to pursue individual careers in 1963.

He is most popular for his 1967 film Balika Badhu, an adaptation of a story written by Bimal Kar. The film marked the debut of teen actress Moushmi Chatterjee. He was married to Sandhya Roy who starred in 20 of his films including Fuleswari and Palatak.

The veteran director was known for being a Marxist and used his films to convey the ideology. He reluctantly showed the socio-economic structure of the society and the impact of industrialisation in his movies. However, he did not shun the romanticism Bengali society indulged in. His films are also known for the sequential use of Rabindranath Tagore's songs.