{"id":2585,"date":"2016-01-17T00:00:30","date_gmt":"2016-01-16T18:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/?p=2585"},"modified":"2016-01-17T04:58:28","modified_gmt":"2016-01-16T23:28:28","slug":"forever-suchitra-sen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/forever-suchitra-sen\/","title":{"rendered":"Forever Suchitra Sen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Suchitra

Suchitra Sen \u2013 the most glamorous star of Bengali cinema<\/p><\/div>\n

She was born on 18th Sept 1905 and died in 1990 at the age of 84. But for almost half a century before that, she was a recluse, choosing her life into seclusion as she famously remarked once \u2013 \u201cI want to be let alone.\u201d She shot into fame in the 1920s and 1930s, never got married, yet linked to many men of her times.<\/p>\n

Professor of Indian Cultures and Cinema at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London Rachel Dwyer explains \u2013\u201cThere may be two major reasons – one is that some stars, usually very beautiful, hate seeing themselves grow old. Some probably find it harder than the rest of us to deal with these changes. However, others may want to escape their own beauty and the image of them created by publicity in the media or made by their studios and the public\u2019s concept of them created by the roles and the way they were presented in the films themselves. Some may want to conceal something such as their private lives or their sexuality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dwyer\u00a0continues, \u201cGarbo wasn\u2019t a true recluse in the sense she went out in public, unlike Howard Hawks. I think the true recluse may well suffer from mental illness rather than making a decision to do \u2014 or not to do \u2014 something. It\u2019s also a paradox of film that the star is always present \u2014 on film \u2014 but absent because they\u2019re not actually there. Maybe this makes us even more intrigued when they become reclusive in real life while we still have their screen images.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reference of Greta Garbo always resurfaces whenever one thinks of India\u2019s own answer to her, Suchitra Sen. Sen was born in undivided Bengal (now in Bangladesh) on April 6, 1931. For well over the last three decades, she had\u00a0been a successful recluse. Unlike Garbo, Sen never made any public appearance ever since she went behind curtains. There had been umpteen trials and tribunals of the press to bring her out, to get a glimpse of her private life, to demystify the mystery.<\/p>\n

Sen went on to refuse the Dada Shaheb Phalke award (since she was not ready to accept it in person in New Delhi), the highest conferred by the Government of India in the field of cinema in 2005.<\/p>\n

\"Uttam

With Uttam Kumar in Sagarika<\/p><\/div>\n

Starting off in 1952 with Shesh Kothay<\/em> which never got a release, Suchitra Sen came to the notice the following year with two very different roles \u2013 as Bishnupriya, the wife of Sri Chaitanya deb in Bhagaban Srikrishna Chaitanya<\/em> and as Romola in the hilarious and an evergreen box-office hit Saare Chuattor<\/em>. Saare Chuattor<\/em> is the film which launched the Suchitra Sen \u2013 Uttam Kumar pair even though they were not the main attraction of the film. The Tollygunje industry was then looking for a new hero and a new star couple to bank on following Pramathes Barua\u2019s stupendous popularity and Kanan Devi\u2019s lilting ebullience.<\/p>\n

The rest of the \u201850s saw history being made in the Bengali film industry with Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen being the first superhit couple on screen \u2013 the 20 odd films in that decade gave them prominence and stardom which probably no other stars till date can match. With Sagaraika, Sapmochan, Sabar Uporey, Shilpi, Harano Sur, Pathe Holo Deri, Jiban Trishna, Indrani, Chawa Pawa<\/em> to name a few the duos mesmerized the Bengali audience.<\/p>\n

Aaj dujonar duti poth<\/strong><\/em> (Harano Sur<\/em>, 1957) – Hemanta Mukherjee \/ Gauriprasanna Majumdar \/ Hemanta Mukherjee <\/span><\/p>\n