Jamuna Baruah () (1919 – 24 November 2005) was a leading
Indian actress.
Early life
Jamuna was the fourth of the six daughters of Puran Gupta, a resident of a village near Agra, India. Each of the sisters was named after an Indian river like Ganga, Jamuna, Bhagirathi etc. As destiny would have it, Jamuna came to reside in Calcutta, a leading film producing city in India. Originally from
Gauripur of
Assam's
Goalpara district (undivided), Jamuna was married to the legendary actor director
Pramathesh Barua, or P.C. Barua, who died in 1950. She began her acting career in her husband's famous production
Devdas in 1936 and was the film's lead character
Parvati or
Paro. She went on to make a number of memorable movies in Assamese, Bengali and
Hindi, notably
Amiri,
Mukti,
Adhikar and
Sesh Uttar. She stopped acting after Barua died.
Film career
In the thirties and played a small role in Mohabbat Ki Kasauti (1934), directed by P.C. Barua. A romance started although Barua, hailing from the native Indian state of Gauripur, Assam, was already twice married. As the actress, who was to play Parbati in Barua's next venture Devdas (1935) reported inability to attend the studio on the very first day of shooting, Jamuna was called from Barua's residence (she was living with him by then) and was asked to get down to work straight away without any preparation whatsoever. Thus she came to be the first Parbati of Indian talkies- Miss Light had played the role in the...
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