Ava Mukherjee was born in 1929 in India. She made her film debut in the 1965 Bengali-language film "Ram Dhakka," directed by Taru Mukherjee. After a long hiatus, she returned to the screen with a role in the 2000 Hindi film "Snip!" She gained widespread recognition for portraying Shah Rukh Khan's grandmother in the 2002 film "Devdas." In 2009, she played the lead role in "Detective Naani," directed by her daughter, Romilla Mukherjee. Ava Mukherjee passed away on January 15, 2018, in Mumbai, India, at the age of 88.