Khaled Choudhury (20 December 1919 – 30 April 2014) was a theatre personality and artist of Bengal. He worked for various directors of both Bengali and Hindi plays, including Sombhu Mitra, Tripti Mitra, and Shyamanand Jalan in various capacities — creating the Stage, sets and costumes and later as music director. He was a bachelor. He has been awarded the Padma Bhushan for his contribution to theatre in India's Republic Day Honours List on 26 January 2012.[1] He died on 30 April 2014 in Kolkata.[2]
Khaled Choudhury | |
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Born | Karimganj, Assam, India | 20 December 1919
Died | 30 April 2014 Kolkata, India | (aged 94)
Nationality | Indian |
Occupation(s) | Stage & Set Director, Bengali and Hindi theatre, Painter, Musician |
Khaled Choudhury was born on 20 December 1919[3] in Karimganj, which was then in undivided Assam, a State of British India. His father was Chandranath Dutta Choudhury and his mother was Hem Nalini. His grandmother's brother, Gurusaday Dutt, had named him Chirakumar, but his father later changed the name to Chiraranjan Dutta Choudhury. This name he changed in 1943 to Khaled Choudhury (though he did not change his religion), as a consequence of strained relationship with his father. He moved to Kolkata (then Calcutta) in 1945. He died there after an illness on 30 April 2014.[4]
In 1945, he joined the Bharatiya Gananatya Sangha (Indian People's Theatre Association). He joined Bohurupee in 1953. List of plays in which Khaled Choudhury had been involved primarily as Stage Director are:
Khaled Choudhury got involved with folk music and folk-lore research in the 1960s. He was Secretary of the Folk Music and Folklore Research Institute at its inception in 1965, which collected a lot of folk music from eastern India. This entire collection was subsequently donated to the Lokasanskriti o Adivasisanskriti Kendra (Centre for Folk and Adivasi Culture), Govt. of West Bengal.