Menaka Devi(1918-2004)

Menaka Devi was born in Varanasi in 1918. Her mother was a resident of the holy city although her father was from Bengal. Her interest in music and dance took her to Bombay where she starred in a couple of films like Prince Thaksen (1929), Uttara abhimanyu, Iswar Ki Maut and others as a child artiste. Reportedly, she met the legendary film director Debaki Bose of Bengal during a train journey and he was so impressed by her that he decided to cast her in the lead role of his next venture in the Hindi version of the bilingual Sonar Sansar (1936) and thus began the illustrous career of Menaka. Her devotion to work was such that she learnt Bengali, her mother tongue although she was anything but fluent in it having spent all her life till then outside Bengal, so that she could play the same role (that of Alaka) in the Bengali version also. Dhiraj Bhattacharya was her first hero on the screen. P.C.Barua, who was on the lookout for a young and fresh face to play Jharna in his forthcoming production Mukti (1937) selected her for both the versions and a flow started whereby she starred in films like Adhikar (1939), Abhigyan (1938), Bardidi (1939), Rajat Jayanti (1940) and others. She decided to try her luck in Bombay around 1944 and starred in more than twenty films there and definitely made her presence felt although playing the second lead most of the time. Kishore Sahu procured her services for Hamari Duniya (1952). She turned producer also and this proved her undoing. Both her films as producer, Apna na Huye Apne and Jeene Do, both starring herself with prominent Bombay stars flopped. She returned to Calcutta a broken woman and found to her dismay that roles were not coming to her. She joined the MG Enterprise, a drama group of Molina Devi and performed on the stage to continue to live as an actress. She even arranged magic shows along with husband Pannalal Srivastava while small roles came pouring in films like Ekti Raat (1956) and others. The feature that strikes even today while seeing her performance is the spontaneous nature of her acting. Why good roles eluded her is a mystery. She was last seen on the screen in Bhombal Sardar (1983). Her end came in 2004 after a prolonged fight not only against poor health but also poverty. Her death was reported only in one Bengali daily although her death news received good coverage on television.