Enigmatic Bengali cinema star became recluse

Published 12:00 am Sunday, January 19, 2014

KOLKATA, West Bengal — The Bengali actor Suchitra Sen, who was often called India’s Greta Garbo because of her iconic performances and her reclusive ways, died Friday at a Kolkata nursing home after a heart attack. She was 82.

The diva of black-and-white Bengali cinema, who had appeared in about 60 films during a career spanning 25 years, began with “Sesh Kothaay” in 1952.

A year later, the hit “Shaarey Chuattor” established Sen and her costar, the late Uttam Kumar, as the leading on-screen couple of the Bengali film industry.

She became known for her powerful acting in memorable films like “Agnipariksha,” “Grihaprabesh,” “Deep JweleJaai,” “Harano Sur” and “Uttar Falguni.”

Sen became the first Bengali actress to receive an international award when she was named the best actress at the 1963 Moscow International Film Festival for her performance as Archana in “Saat Paake Bandha.”

“She was the Mahayanika for us,” said the Bengali actor Prosenjit Chatterjee, using the word for “great heroine.” “Few heroines in Bengal, and India, can compare with her. She was absolutely beautiful, full of charm and had some kind of aura about her. With her smile and nuanced acting, she lit up the screen. She was the best model of a superstar for the film industry.”

Although she did not experience the same kind of success in Bollywood as she did in the Bengali film industry, she had critically acclaimed roles in Hindi films like “Devdas,” “Bombai Ka Babu,” “Mamta” and “Aandhi.”

Sen, born April 6, 1931, in what is now Bangladesh, is survived by daughter Moon Moon and granddaughters Raima and Riya Sen, all of them actors. Her husband, Dibanath Sen, died in the 1970s, according to local news reports.

As soon as the news of Sen’s death spread, huge crowds gathered outside the nursing home, where she had been staying for the past few weeks after contracting a respiratory infection. People came from far and wide also to her residence, where Sen’s body was taken in a coffin soon after she died, and then to the Keoratala crematorium as they attempted to get a glimpse of the actress who had kept herself away from the public eye since she quit acting in 1978.

Over the past three decades, Sen did not give any public appearances, but the public’s fascination with her did not abate. In 2009, the Bengali channel Star Ananda broadcast some hazy images of her at home in which a silver-haired Sen looked like “any other grandmother.”

At the nursing home where she was hospitalized, the state’s chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, was the only visitor Sen allowed, apart from immediate family members.

“(Becoming) a recluse was also one reason that made her more enigmatic,” Chatterjee said. “In public imagination, she immortalized her image — beautiful, young and a huge star.”

On Friday, Sen’s body was cremated, and she was given a gun salute, with Banerjee and several Bengali film stars in attendance, along with Sen’s family.