Barua did not create Devdas - he was Devdas. So powerful was the impact of Pramathesh's portrayal on screen, so close it grew to his private life, that to the Bengali audience, Devdas was synonymous with the actor who played the character. By the time the film was released, Pramathesh became aware that he had contacted tuberculosis, and, drawn inescapably to the bottle like his screen parallel, wasted himself away slowly and surely, to die barely 15 years after he had lived the character of Devdas on screen.