Golden Era of Bollywood: Remembering ASHOK KUMAR( Dada Muni) on his 105th Birth Anniversary

An actor who could capture all your attention in a single shot, a man who added glamour to Hindi film fraternity and promoted talents from all corners of the country, Ashok Kumar has ruled the silver screen and melted millions of hearts with his charismatic screen appearance and personality.He was the first superstar of Hindi cinema as well as the first lead actor to play an anti-hero. He also became the first star to reinvent himself, enjoying a long and hugely successful career as a character actor.
Ashok Kumar (13 October 1911 – 10 December 2001), born Kumudlal Ganguly and also fondly called Dadamoni,

His father, Kunjlal Ganguly, was a lawyer while his mother, Gouri Devi, was a home-maker. Kumudlal (as he was then known) was the eldest of four children. A couple of years younger to him was his only sister, Sati Devi, who was married at a very young age to Sashadhar Mukherjee and became the matriarch of a large "film family". More than fourteen years younger than Kumudlal was his next brother,Kalyan (b.1926), who later took the screen name Anoop Kumar, and youngest of all was Abhas (b.1929), whose screen name wasKishore Kumar and who became a phenomenally successful playback singer of Hindi films.
It was the lure of cinema and the presence of his brother-in-law Sashadhar Mukherjee in a fairly senior position in Bombay Talkies which prompted Kumudlal Ganguly to move to Bombay (Mumbai) in the mid 1930s, where he started off as a laboratory assistant in Bombay Talkies, one of the biggest film studios of that era.

His introduction to films was purely an accident. He got the lead role in Jeevan Naiya (1936), a Bombay Talkies production. The film's hero Najmul Hassan had eloped with heroine Devika Rani, who happened to be the wife of studio head Himanshu Rai. Rai dismissed Hassan and signed lab assistants Ashok Kumar for the role.

His first big hit was Achhut Kanya (1936), where he again paired with Devika Rani. The film was about a Brahmin boy falling in love with a girl from the 'untouchable' class.
He was the first anti-hero of Indian cinema. Gyan Mukherjee's Kismet (1943) presented Ashok as a pickpocket who falls in love. This was the first film in Indian cinema that grossed at one crore rupees. So technically, Ashok Kumar was the one to set up the 'crore club'.

Post Kismet, Ashok Kumar became the most bankable star of the era, delivering a succession of box office successes with movies like Chal Chal Re Naujawan (1944), Shikari (1946), Sajan (1947), Mahal (1949), Sangram (1950) and Samadhi (1950).
He produced several films for Bombay Talkies during the final years of the company including Ziddi (1948), which established the careers of Dev Anand and Pran,

Song from Howrah Bridge 1958

With the advent of the 1950s Ashok Kumar switched over to more mature roles, with the exception of the 1958 classic Howrah Bridge. Despite the arrival of a younger crop of stars like Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor, Ashok Kumar remained one of the stars of the era with hits like Afsana (1951), Nau Bahar (1952), Parineeta (1953), Bandish (1955) and EK Hi Raasta (1956). His most successful film of that era was Deedar (1951), in which he played second fiddle to Dilip Kumar.

Song from bandini 1963

By the 1960s, Ashok Kumar switched over to character roles, variously playing the parent, uncle or grandparent, being careful never to be typecast. From a judge in Kanoon(1960), an aging freedom fighter in Bandini (1963), an aging priest in Chitralekha (1964), a vicious zamindar in Jawaab (1970) and a criminal in Victoria 203 (1971), he played a wide variety of roles.

Ashok Kumar played an important role in several landmark movies in the 1960s and 1970s, including Jewel Thief (1967), Aashirwad (1968) (for which he won a Filmfare Award as well as National Award in 1969), Purab aur Pashchim (1970), Pakeezah (1972), Mili (1975), Chhoti Si Baat (1975) and Khoobsurat (1980).

Song from Aashirwad 1968

. Altogether, he starred in over 275 films. He has done more than 30 Bengali dramas in Dhakuria.He was honoured in 1988 with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest national award for cinema artists, by the Government of India and also received the Padma Bhushan in 1999 for his contributions toIndian cinema.

Ashok Kumar became a familiar face on television screens in the 1980s when he started anchoring India's first soap opera Hum Log.

Ashok Kumar's last film role was in the 1997 movie Aankhon Mein Tum Ho. Besides acting, he was an avid painter and a practitioner of homeopathy. A qualified homoeopath, Ashok Kumar earned a reputation for conjuring up miracle cures.

Ashok Kumar died at the age of 90 in Mumbai on 10 December 2001 of heart failure at his residence in Chembur. The then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee described him as "an inspiration... for many generations of aspiring actors.

Songs from Ashok Kumar's Films