Just as we recall, ‘Tun Tun’, a smile appears on most faces as we recall the memory of seeing this actress in movies that made us laugh. She was Bollywood’s first female comedian but had quite a tragic life. However, she never showed that in her work. Infact, she made her weaknesses into her strength – for instance her body weight. Born in 1923 in a small town in Uttar Pradesh, her real name was Uma Devi Khatri. Her early life was marked by tragedy, her parents were murdered in a land dispute when she was just a toddler. In an interview with Shishir Krishna Sharma, which was replicated by the Navbharat Times, Tun Tun recalled how she stayed with her relatives after her parents passed away and they didn’t allow her to study. “I don’t remember who my parents were and how they looked, I would be two to two and half years old when they passed away. I had a brother, eight or nine years old, whose name was Hari. I just remembered that we were living in a village named Alipur. One day, my brother was killed and I was left to relatives, that time I was four or five years old,” she said.
At 23, Uma Devi came to Mumbai nothing. She turned up at the home of renowned composer Naushad and issued a dramatic ultimatum. Either he listened to her sing, or she’d jump into the Arabian Sea. He agreed to listen and that audition changed her life. By 1945, she was singing in films. But fame was fragile. Her decision to sing for Chandralekha, produced by rival Gemini Studios, led to a rupture with Naushad, the mentor who had given her everything. Her singing career collapsed almost overnight. Yet, instead of shunning her, Naushad showed her another path – acting. It was Dilip Kumar who gave her a new identity—and perhaps unintentionally, a brand — when he christened her “Tun Tun,” a cheeky nod to her size. That name stuck, and with it came a career of comic roles that leaned heavily on physical humour and self-deprecation. She became a staple of Hindi cinema’s supporting cast—always present, always the butt of the joke. “My bulk is my trump card. I don’t regret that I am fat. I’m lucky I was born this way,” she said once in an interview. She added, “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?” Her final years were marked by poverty and neglect. Once a familiar face on the silver screen, Tun Tun spent her last days in a modest Mumbai chawl and was mostly forgotten. In a Times of India interview, journalist Shashi Ranjan recalled her plight, “She said that she couldn’t walk and had trouble even getting food. 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.” Tun Tun passed away in 2003, at the age of 80.
