Parents murdered, career crushed, she became Bollywood’s first comedian, was left to rot in a chawl with no money for food in final days

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Tun Tun moved to Mumbai to pursue her dreams. After a spate of early success, she decided to take up an offer to sing for the film Chandralekha , produced by Gemini Studios. This angered the man she’d been working with, and her career as a playback singer came to an end. It was Naushad who pointed her in a new direction. She told Femina in 1975, “Naushad, who is my rakhi brother, knew this defect of mine pretty well and kept on telling me that he saw more of a mischievous comedian in me. I decided to fall in line and on the spur of the moment told him that I would act as a funster only if Dilip Kumar were to act opposite me. Naushad bhai immediately consulted Yusuf bhai and I was baffled and could not believe my own ears when he created a character especially for me in Babul.”

Film producer Deep Khosla, Pradeep Kumar, Comedian Om Prakash and Tun Tun (Oma Devi) at the muhurat shot of film EK SHOLA. Express archive photo

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It was Dilip Kumar who suggested the name ‘Tun Tun’, a crass dig at her weight. Tun Tun was typecast, repeatedly playing secondary roles that reduced her to a punching bag. But she didn’t mind, or at least that’s what she said in the Femina interview. “My bulk is my trump card. I don’t regret that I am fat. I’m lucky I was born this way. However that does not mean that I am not in favour of dieting. I agree dieting is very essential to maintain a slim and healthy body. But where is the need for me to be slim and ravishingly beautiful?” she said.

Film star Uma Devi (Tun Tun) and Mala Sinha. Express Archive

But, like most performers of her era, she was sidelined from the industry the moment she outlived her usefulness. In an interview conducted by the late actor Tom Alter, just five years before her death, Tun Tun had spoken philosophically about the passage of time, “I am 75 years old. I am a young lady. But I can still sing if I want to. Manna Dey can still sing, but our time is up. New artists are coming in. If you look at the comedians in films and on TV now, it’s their time to shine, we had our time too, and it was great. Time doesn’t wait for anybody. Today you’re a star, tomorrow it’s someone else.”

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Her final years weren’t pleasant. In an interview conducted by Shashi Ranjan for The Times of India, it was revealed that Tun Tun was living in a chawl, forgotten by her fraternity. She didn’t have enough money for food or medicines. “She said that she couldn’t walk and had trouble even getting food,” he said. “I remember she reiterating in the interview that she gave her life for the industry and look at the condition that she was back then. She thanked us for interviewing her and when I requested her, she sang the song Afsana Likh Rahi Hoon. Her specialty was that despite being in such a condition, she didn’t lose her sense of humour. She laughed at her poverty, she laughed at the way she was being treated by the world. I liked that very much. Although I felt sad for her it stayed with me that she didn’t lose her sense of humour,” he concluded. Tun Tun died at the age of 80, in 2003.