In a Bollywood film industry dominated by powerhouse families the Ganguly brothers and their family connections serve as an important bridge between the clans.
Brief history of the Ganguly family
The Ganguly family are a family of film personalities active in the Hindi film industry. The family comprises the descendants of three brothers - Ashok Kumar Ganguly, Anoop Kumar Ganguly and Kishore Kumar Ganguly - and their sister Sati Rani Mukherkjee. The history of the Ganguly family begins with Kunjalal Ganguly, an advocate by profession coming from a long line of lawyers, and his wife Gouri Rani Devi, the grand-daughter of Raja Shibchandra Banerjee and sister of classical singer Dhananjay Banerjee. The celebrated brothers and their sister, who gave birth to the Mukherjee's of Bollywood, were born to these two. Supposedly, Kishore Kumar inherited his sense of comedy from Kunjalal. Also, the most popular film featuring all three Ganguly brothers – Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi – was, supposedly, inspired by Kunjalal's Chrysler that he bought in 1928, a year before the birth of his youngest son. If Rattan Bai from their extended family network is ignored, Ashok Kumar was the first person in the family to go into the film industry. His daughter Preeti Ganguly, son-in-law Deven Verma and granddaughter Anuradha Patel also became accomplished actors. Ashok Kumar's son Aroop Kumar Ganguly never joined the film industry.
Kishore Kumar's wives
was married to Ruma Guha Thakurta, Madhubala, Yogeeta Bali and Leena Chandavarkar. Ruma was the daughter of Satyen Ghosh and a niece to Smt. Bijoya Roy, the wife of the legendary film directorSatyajit Ray. Her mother Sati Devi, a talented singer, was the elder sister of Bijoya, the legendary director's wife. Amit Kumar, her son with Kishore Kumar eventually became a celebrity in his own right. Amit later sang duets with Krishna Mukherjee, a niece to his paternal aunt Satirani. Yogeeta was a niece to Geeta Bali, who in turn was Shammi Kapoor's first wife. Kishore's second son Sumit Kumar was born to Leena and is also a singer. Ruma later married Arup Guha Thakurta and had a son, Ayan, and a daughter, Sromana, with him. Shammi Kapoor, a scion of the Kapoor family and Geeta Bali's daughter Kanchan Desai married Ketan Desai, son of director Manmohan Desai, who was engaged to actress Nanda before his death. Yogeeta eventually divorced Kishore Kumar and married Mithun Chakravorty, who married Sridevi for a brief stint. Sridevi later married producer Surinder Kapoor's son Boney Kapoor, a producer who has two famous actors for brothers – Anil Kapoor and Sanjay Kapoor. Surinder, on the other hand, began his career as Geeta Bali's secretary. His only daughter, Reena, is married to showbiz tycoon Sandeep Marwah. Satyajit and Bijoya's son Sandip Ray is an accomplished film director.
