Sen: Up close and personal

An interview was on. Lifting a goblet of beer at a buffet, the hardcore commercial movie producer J. Om Prakash — rarely assigned credit for bankrolling Aandhi — said to me ever so coolly, “Suchitra Sen Sure, I can get her to do a Hindi film again. All it’ll take is an airflight to Calcutta, a fabulous script and a meeting at Trincas.” That airflight to Calcutta, the fab script and that rendezvous at Trincas, the place to fine-dine, evidently, never happened. Lore has it, though, that even during her three-and-a-half decades of self-imposed seclusion, Sen, shielded by huge go-glasses, would pop up at Trincas for a chilled lager and a club sandwich, and skedaddle in a matter of minutes. A former Miss India who’d accompanied the I’m-fed-up-of-it-all legend-in-her-own-lifetime to one such restaurant-hop, does a perfect imitation of the otherwise inimitable Sen. For a film tracker, curiosity continues to be astral-high for Suchitra Sen (1931-2014) who resolved suddenly to fly over the cuckoo’s nest. She shut shop as soon as her film Pranoy Pasha (1978) went the way of Titanic, the ship not the film. And she remained stubbornly reclusive right till her end-breath to the extent of nixing the Dadasaheb Phalke Award. Expectedly, a series of conjectural biographies and theories have compared her to Greta Garbo who had once sighed, “I want to be (let) alone.” To be honest, I approached Suchitra Sen: the Legend and the Enigma, by the prolific writer and academician Shoma A. Chatterji, with a certain hesitation. In fact, the opening pages of Chatterji’s compact 200-something pager, calls for a laborious amount of ploughing through the same ’ole. Needlessly, the preface putters on the about the whys-’n’-whatevers for revisiting the subject. The author declaims, immodestly, that her take will be diametrically different from those of other writers. Please, how about allowing the book speak for itself Such initial hiccups apart, the look back at the life and times, and above all the cinema of Suchitra Sen, turns out to be as engaging as it is informative. Instantly it stokes the appetite for tracking down the estimable oeuvre of the actress. Easier said than realised, perhaps. In the new-age of downloads and pen-drives, Bengali language film DVDs with subtitles have become inaccessible in, say, Mumbai and New Delhi. As for the prime Internet source YouTube, buffering and the quality of printer are a deterrent. A retrospective on the big screen, particularly of the Suchitra Sen-Uttam Kumar romantic dramas — Indrani, Agni Pariksha and Saptabadi, to name just three randomly — would be god-sent. Ditto Sen’s films with other actors, Deep Jwele Jai, Uttar Falguni and the Moscow festival’s Best Actress Award grabber Saat Paake Bandha. But who’d do that Not our film festival authorities who have a harum scarum attitude towards our cinema treasury. In the event, the book with its painstakingly researched synopses and insightful critiques are, at the very least, a primary lesson on the Sen-Kumar magic that was and the actress’ ability to excel on her own steam. It would appear that coalescing an academic approach with fact-finding and interviews (with Moon Moon Sen, Madhabi Mukherjee and stalwart directors of Bengal) must have been a daunting exercise. Gratifyingly, the author does justice both to the scholastic sections and the journalistic reportage. Repetitiveness does mar the text but, perhaps, that was essential to connect with readers who aren’t familiar with Bengali movie titles. A strong plus is that the plot summaries are underscored from a feisty feminist perspective. The myriad roles of Suchitra Sen as a working woman way back in the patriarchal 1950s and ’60s are persuasively discussed. Similarly, it’s pointed out that the Bengal audiences swooned over Suchitra Sen’s portrayals, more for her star allure conveyed though shimmering close-ups than for her acting expertise. Arguable maybe, but it’s a valid point of view. Throughout, too, it is maintained that the chemistry between Suchitra Sen and Uttam Kumar did not extend beyond the screen. Emphatically, it is said that they were strictly “good friends” who eventually had a professional fallout. Yet, the reclusive one showed up at her “hero’s” funeral. That the pair was endless grist for the gossip mills is passed off as just one of those things. Blame it on the media, as always. To come to the legend’s fistful of Hindi language films, Aandhi and Mamta are incisively dissected. Bimal Roy’s Devdas and Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Musafir, in which she matched the restrained histrionics of Dilip Kumar, are just skimmed over though. Disappointingly, too, the little-seen Champakali, whose song Chhup gaya koi re is among Lata Mangeshkar’s best renditions, and Raj Khosla’s Bombai ka Babu, which dared to suggest an incestuous relationship, are just-about mentioned. Glitches apart, this close-up of Suchitra Sen is notches above the recent output of movie-star paperbacks. It has a touch of warmth, reminding me of J. Om Prakash who dreamt of tempting la Sen with an offer she couldn’t refuse at Trincas. But didn’t. How come Chances are that could be another story.

Khalid Mohamed is a journalist, film critic and film director