Niharbala

One of the brightest stars to shine over the Bengal stage, Niharbala was born in 1999 to Kishori Mohan Sarkar and Nirada. Nihar was lucky in the sense that she was given due recognition by her father and was given his name and did not suffer the indignity of being known only as a daughter of Miss Nirada. However, it was the mother who was in charge of bringing up the child and as such Nihar was brought to the theatre at the age of nine. She quit the stage after some time and was given training in music by Gouri Shankar Mishra. Thereafter she rejoined the stage around 1917 and here she received dancing lessons side by side her stage performances. She performed in different theaters of Calcutta and in 1923 history was created with her role as Niyoti in the play Karnarjun. Her songs like Kalprabaha Chale Dhire, Ami Kakhan Bhangi Kakhan Gari and Pran Heena Putul Samaan were great hits and the songs published as gramophone records. In 1925, Niharbala went to Burma as part of Star Theatre group. Karnarjun and Iraner Rani were the two plays staged in Burma. Rabindranath Tagore witnessed her performance in Chirakumar Sabha and was extremely pleased to note that Nihar sang Tagore songs in proper tune and spirit and he gave five more of his songs for the play to be sung by Niharbala. On the stage she became an automatic choice to play singing roles in plays based on Tagore stories. This also led to her recording Tagore songs for The Gramophone Company. In an illustrious career stretching over three decades, Niharbala acted in Rakhibandhan, Chhinnahaar, Apsara, Sadhabar Ekadashi, Muktir Daak, Joydeb, Chandidas, Prafulla, Bandini, Rupkumari, Bibaha Bibhrat, Mrinalini, KapalKundala and several other plays with great success and in her period had no rival be it in acting or singing or dancing. Niharbala's entry into films was through a short film Chandrasekhar where she had noted dramatist Aparesh Chandra Mukhopadhyay as her co star in 1921. Her other memorable film appearances include Mishar Rani (1924), Kelor Kirti (1928), Debdas (1928), Prahlad (1931), Chand Saudagar (1934), Bidyasundar (1935), Selima (1935) and Abartan (1936). In 1944, while on a tour of South India she happened to visit Pandichery and then onwards became a regular visitor to Shri Aurobinda's Ashram there. In 1950 she decided to move out of the limelight and settled as a resident of the Pondichery Ashram. Here she took part in cultural activities and gave music and dance lessons to young ashramites. At Pondicherry , on the 7th of March 1955, Niharbala suffered a heart attack and left for her heavenly abode. She was survived by a brother and his family.