Bhanu Athaiya, India’s first Oscar award winner, left for heavenly abode at the age of 91. She was stationed in Mumbai where she breathed her last due to a brain tumour. Bhanu was a famous costume designer and had won her country the first Oscar statue for ‘Gandhi’ in 1983. The film had released in the previous year. Later she won National Awards for ‘Lekin’ and ‘Lagaan’. Some of famous Hindi films for which Bhanu designed costumes for were ‘CID’, ‘Satyam Shivam Sundaram’, ‘Lagaan’ and ‘Swades’. Her works also include ‘Ram Teri Ganga Maili’, ‘Hero Hiralal’, ‘Chandni’, ‘Agneepath’ and ‘Ajooba’. The Kolhapur-born fashion designer returned her Oscar to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for safe-keeping in the year 2012.
