Pratima Devi (Hindi actress)

Pratima Devi (born Khairunnisa Suleiman; 1910 – 29 January 1993) was an Indian character actress in the Indian film industry, active from the 1930s to the 1980s. Right from the beginning of her career, she starred in motherly roles, and is best remembered for playing a virtuous and upright mother to leading stars.

She was born in a family belonging to Khoja community and was the eldest of the three daughters of Suleiman Sherief who shifted to Bombay with his family. She was married off to a distant relative but got divorced while being pregnant. She later gave birth to a boy who died within few hours of his birth.^[2]

She was noticed and discovered by Himanshu Rai, the doyen of Bombay Talkies who offered her a role in his film Nirmala in which she essayed the role of Ashok Kumar's mother.^[3] She took on elderly roles, of a mother, an aunt or even a grandmother as her career progressed. In a career spanning 45 years, Pratima featured in nearly 200 films sharing screen alongside actors like Ashok Kumar, V. Shantaram, Bhagwan Dada, Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Meena Kumari, Hema Malini^[4] and Amitabh Bachchan to name a few. She was often mis-credited as Protima Devi, Prathima Devi and Pratima in many films.

Pratima Devi breathed her last on 29 January 1993, she was 82.