Basanta Choudhury

Bengali actor and polymath; Professor Rajat in Parakh · 1928–2000

Basanta Choudhury, born in Nagpur on 5 May 1928, was far more than an actor. The former civil servant Jawhar Sircar describes him as a man who combined theatre actor, film star, elocutionist, scholar, numismatist, antiquarian, collector and historian so effortlessly, and he served as Sheriff of Kolkata. He worked mainly in Bengali cinema, and in 1965 the Bengal Film Journalists' Association gave him its Best Actor prize for Raja Rammohan. In Bimal Roy's Parakh (1960) he plays the schoolmaster Rajat, who loves the postmaster's daughter, opposite Sadhana. He died in Calcutta on 20 June 2000.