Bijoya Ray

Bijoya Ray Biography

Bijoya Ray is a singing actress during the era of 1940’s. She worked for Bengali movies. She is the wife of the famous film Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray and mother of Sandip Ray, film maker of modern times. Her father-in-law Sukumar Ray was a noted Child story writer. She was born as Bijoya Das in 25th of October 1918. Bengali film, Sesh Raksha in 1944 in which she acted and sang and the documentary film Gaach by Catherine Berge in 1998 are her acting experiences. She has worked only in less number of movies and didn’t get satisfaction in her work. She married Satyajit Ray, who happened to be her first cousin in the year 1949 and settled with her family life. Their single son, Sandip was born in 1953. Bijoya Ray is better known as the biggest inspiration of the successful career of her husband, the greatest Indian film maker all times!

Bijoya Ray was born as Bijoya Das, the youngest daughter to Charu Chandra Das, a barrister and Madhuri Devi. She had three elder sisters. Her sister Sati Devi was an artist and has worked in Uday Shankar’s troupe as well as Prithvi theatres. Ruma Guha Thakurta, an artist in acting and music is Bijoya’s niece (daughter of Sati devi). Bijoya’s childhood days were spent at Patna and she studied in a convent school. Since childhood she has been talented singer and hence her father wanted her to sent abroad to learn music. But his unfortunate death couldn’t bring that dream to reality. She has been a talented actress too, though she gave less preference to acting field. She lost her father at the age of 13.

Later she came to live in her paternal uncle Prasant Das’ home and met her cousin Satyajit Ray during this time. Their common interests of music and films made them attract each other. After a long courtship, they were married in 1949. She used to write fair copies of Ray’s scripts as he was illegible in writing. She also assisted him in costume designing.

She died in Kolkata on 2 June 2015, aged 98, after suffering from acute pneumonia.

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Updated: April 09, 2016