GUWAHATI, Jan 9: Veteran Assamese filmstar Jnanada Kakati, one of the first Indian actresses to get global recognition, died at a hospital due to age-related ailments.
She was 94.
Kakati was admitted to a private hospital in Shillong, where she breathed her last on Wednesday night, doctors said. She is survived by daughter Juri Kakati.
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She was the first Assamese and one of the first Indian actresses to receive international recognition and fame when her film ‘Puberun’, directed by ace filmmaker Prabhat Mukherjee, was selected to be screened at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1959.
“She was invited as a special guest there. The film ‘Puberun’ was the only film to represent India at the Berlin International Film Festival in that year alongside films like ‘Breathless’ of France’s Jean Luc Goddard,” film and TV personality Bobbeeta Sharma told PTI.
Sharma, who had made a documentary on the life and works of Kakati, said the veteran actor acted in 14 Assamese films and four Bengali films.
Her first film was ‘Parghat’ in 1949, which was the seventh Assamese film. Since then, she has been a popular Assamese actress and acted in several movies, five of which won national awards.
“Living in a remote corner of India and making a foray into acting in films, that too after marriage in a conservative mindset of the late 1940’s, was definitely challenging while performing her duties as a wife, daugher-in-law, daughter and mother of two children,” Sharma said.
Kakati was also an accredited singer of All India Radio, and was the first announcer of AIR Shillong/Guwahati, which was inaugurated in 1948. (PTI)
