Ashok Kumar was born Kumudlal Ganguly to a Bengali family in Bhagalpur, then in the Bengal Presidency of British India and now in the Bihar state of India. His father, Kunjlal Ganguly, was a Lawyer while his mother, Gouri Devi, was a home-maker. Kumudlal (as he was then known) was the eldest of four children. His only sister, Sati Devi, a few years younger to him, was married at a very young age to Sashadhar Mukherjee and became the matriarch of a large "film family". Next was his brother, Kalyan, more than 14 years younger (b.1926), who later took the screen name Anoop Kumar, and youngest of all was Abhas (b.1929), whose screen name was Kishore Kumar, who became a phenomenally successful playback singer of Hindi films. Although the eldest by several years, Ashok Kumar outlived all his siblings. In fact, he stopped celebrating his birthday after his youngest brother, Kishore, died on that very day, Ashok's birthday, in 1987.