Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali’s Durga Roy Aka Uma Dasgupta Dies

Uma Dasgupta never ventured into mainstream cinema after Pather Panchali

Bengali actress Uma Dasgupta died after a prolonged illness on Monday. The actress was hospitalised for a few days. She was best known for her portrayal of Durga Roy in the iconic 1955 film Pather Panchali, directed by Satyajit Ray. Celebrities from all walks of life have paid their moving tribute to Uma Dasgupta. Trinamool Congress Leader (TMC) MP and author Kunal Ghosh has shared a note in Bengali for the actress on Facebook. The note roughly translates to, “Durga from Pather Panchali is now really gone.”

The news of Uma Dasgupta’s death was confirmed by actor Chiranjit Chakraborty, according to a Times Now report. Chiranjit said that he received the heartbreaking news from Uma Dasgupta’s daughter.

According to reports, Uma Dasgupta never ventured into mainstream cinema after Pather Panchali. The film, directed by Satyajit Ray, was an adaptation of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s 1929 Bengali novel of the same name. In addition to Uma Dasgupta, the project featured Subir Banerjee, Kanu Banerjee, Karuna Banerjee, Pinaki Sengupta and Chunibala Devi in pivotal roles.

In October last year, American filmmaker Martin Scorsese recalled watching the English-dubbed version of Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) on TV in New York. Recounting his experience, the director told PTI, “So from that point on, cinema opened to me many different worlds. I wonder what it would be like to be a colonised person and a wide part of a colonised world that you live in.” 

Martin Scorsese added, “And I said, ‘Wait a minute, those are the people I usually see in the background of other films. What’s the difference here?’ The difference is that this film is being made by them, the real people, and I’m being introduced to another culture and another way of thinking, a whole life and the universality of it all. How we all are, basically the same as human beings.”

The first film in The Apu Trilogy, Pather Panchali, beautifully portrays the childhood struggles of Apu and his elder sister Durga as they navigate the harsh realities of their impoverished village life. Apu’s journey continues in the two subsequent films of the trilogy: Aparajito (The Unvanquished, 1956) and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959).