Actress Ava Mukherjee passes away at 88

Veteran actress Ava Mukherjee passed away at the age of 88 today, 18 January, in Mumbai. Although she starred only in a handful of films and television serials, she is most known for playing Shah Rukh Khan’s grandmother in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas (2002). 

Ava debuted with director Taru Mukherjee’s Bengali film Ram Dhakka in 1966. She played a supporting character in the film which saw Ashim Kumar and Praveen Chowdhury in lead roles. 

Her next film came much later in 2000 with Sunhil Sippy’s Snip! This film also marked her Hindi film debut. Ava got noticed in her next film, Devdas, where she played Badima, grandmother to the protagonist Dev. She was later seen in the horror anthology Darna Zaroori Hai (2006), Pryas Gupta's Siddharth: The Prisoner (2009) and Chapour Haghighat's The Firm Land (2009).

Her last film Detective Naani (2009), was the only one where she played the lead. The film was directed by her daughter Romilla Mukherjee.