Arun Kumar Ahuja, popularly known as Aroon, was an Indian film actor and producer who was active in the Bollywood film industry in the 1940s and early 1950s appearing in over 30 films. He was best known for acting in Mehboob Khan's 1940 filmAurat which was the predecessor of the Oscar nominated 1957 remake Mother India.
Career
Ahuja was brought into films by director Mehboob Khan who selected him from over 100 candidates and cast him in the leading role in the 1939 filmEk Hi Raasta for Sagar Movietone. He went on to act in over 30 films throughout the 1940s and early 1950s playing leading and supporting roles for National Studios, Ranjit Studios and Sagar Movietone. In 1940, he played perhaps his most well known role in Mehboob Khan's Aurat where he acted opposite Sardar Akhtar. This film was later remade as the more famous and well known blockbuster Mother India. He was paired with actresses such as Shobhana Samarth, Monica Desai and Khursheed Bano throughout his career. He made a popular pairing with his wife Nirmala Devi in several films such as Savera, Chalis KarodGhunghat and his home productionSehra. After his roles declined in the early 1950s, he quit acting after his last film appearance in Aulad. He also sang in most of his films as was the tradition in those days. In his debut film Ek Hi Raasta he sang a duet with Maya Banerjee. The only film he produced was a box office disaster resulted in him selling off his Bungalow and shifting his entire family to a chawl in Virar. His health failed during this time and his wife Nirmala had to work as a singer on radio and touring concerts to provide for the family of three daughters and two sons. Arun lived a reclusive life after leaving the film industry and died in 1998 at the age of 81.
Ahuja was born as Gulshan Singh Ahuja in pre-partition Gujranwala, Punjab, India in 1917. He took an degree in engineering at a college in Lahore in 1937. Mehboob Khan came to Lahore to find new talent and selected Ahuja as the leading man in his film Ek Hi Raasta in 1939. In 1942, he married singer and actress Nirmala Devi, whom he met after they were cast opposite each other in the film Savera. They were married until Nirmala's death in 1996. Together they had three daughters named Pushpa, Padma and Kamini. Their sons are actor/director Kirti Kumar and actor Govinda. After an acting career that spanned 15 years, Ahuja quit acting in 1954 and suffered from poor health after the failure of his home production. The losses he suffered led to him selling off his Bungalow in Mumbai and move to a chawl in Virar. His wife had to provide for the family by singing and touring concerts. His youngest son Govinda would go on to become a successful actor decades later in the 1980s and 1990s and his other son Kirti Kumar became a director and occasional actor. Several of his grandchildren would go on to become actors in the film and television industry including Vinay Anand, Krishna Abhishek, Ragini Khanna, Aarti Singh, Soumya Seth and Tina Ahuja. His daughter Padma is the mother of Krishna and Aarti and died in the early 1980s soon after giving birth to Aarti. His eldest daughter Pushpa who is the mother of Vinay Anand, died in 2011 aged 68.
