Priyamvada Patel Hazarika passes away

By Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, June 4: Priyamvada Patel Hazarika, wife of legendary singer Bhupen Hazarika, passed away at a hospital in Cada last night. She was 88.

Her brother-in-law Balen Hazarika said Priyamvada died of a cardiac arrest.

Married to Bhupen Hazarika when the latter was doing his doctoral research in Mass Communication at Columbia University, US, way back in 1950, Priyambada belonged to a Gujarati family with business interests in Kenya.

A law graduate from Columbia University, Priyamvada is survived by son Tez Hazarika.

Priyamvada moved away after living with the maestro for more than a decade, assisting him in several of his early films. She also acted in ‘Era Bator Sur’, a film that Hazarika made in 1956. Priyam, as she was popularly known, was also dance director of that film.

While she lived all along in Cada after parting ways with Hazarika in the early-1960s, Priyam came to Assam a year after the music legend passed away in November 2011.

Her last rites will be performed either on Saturday or Sunday. “At our Guwahati residence too, we have begun observing the rituals from today,” Balen Hazarika said

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, All Assam Student Union (AASU) president Dipanka Kumar th, Assam Ga Parishad (AGP) president Atul Borah, Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) president Anjan Dutta and Bharatiya Jata Party (BJP) president Siddhartha Bhattacharya and several other prominent persons have expressed grief at the death of Priyamvada Patel Hazarika.