film. The script of Devdas was being written while Pramathesh was already shooting Rooprekha. After finishing the casting, Pramathesh discovered that he had not found the Parvati he was looking for. Kanan Devi was approached but she had to decline because she was already under contract with Radha Films. He then chanced upon Jamuna, sister of Sitara and Jaya Gupta of Varanasi, who was chosen to portray Parvati. Sometime during the making of the film, the reel-love story turned into a love story in real life. Pramathesh married Jamuna. As soon as work on Devdas was complete, Jamuna gave birth to their son who, to rhyme with the film that brought the lovers together, was christened Debkumar. Devdas was released in Chitra Talkies on 26 April 1935. There are several scenes in Devdas that marked the entry of the jump cut to heighten the drama through a new editing strategy. When Devdas vomits blood during his travels, the camera cuts in to show a plate of floral offerings fall off Parvati's hands, far away in her matrimonial home. In a night scene on the train, as soon as Devdas calls out to Paro, the scene cuts once again to show the doors and windows burst open in Parvati's room as Parvati screams out in sleep in the middle of a nightmare. These scenes set out Pramathesh's creative imagination in explaining through the language of cinema the psychological stress his characters were reeling under, as also the telepathic bonding the lovers shared, without reducing these to melodrama or using sentimental dialogue. According to the late Phani Majumdar, Pramathesh's best performance is in Devdas. He describes, in particular, the scene where Devdas, after his beloved Parvati has been married to another, wanders aimlessly, drinking and shooting down birds at random. A friend of Parvati who spots him from a distance while carrying a pot of water back home, is scared to cross his path. But Devdas merely comes close to the girl and asks her how she is, thus building a scene to an unpredictable anti-climax in a film spilling over with dramatic twists and turns and human tragedy. This is an example of how Pramathesh had gained both command and control over the medium of cinema. As an actor, Pramathesh abhorred melodrama. He kept his face almost deadpan, used minimum body language and left it to his audience to read from