The Empress is dead

In the end, somewhat unexpectedly Suchitra Sen passed away. She was in her mid 80s and had been ailing for a while but nobody expected Suchitra Sen to die. She was in appropriate terms immortal and perhaps even incorporeal. It was this supernatural existence that came to an end in a Kolkata hospital forcing many to face perhaps the power of life and death for the first time. But she like so many of her characters will be destined to live moreover. She was, truly, much more than an icon. The Empress is dead. Long live the Empress.

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She was born Roma Sen in Pabna, now Bangladesh, to very middle class parents. Her father was a school teacher and it's no secret that what gave her a ticket to a wealthy marriage was her beauty. What began as a marriage where looks were bartered for prosperity ended up as a prison from which her life, her family and ultimately she herself could not escape. It usurped her persona and she was made and remade in million minds till the fact and the fiction of Suchitra Sen could no longer be separated. History will judge if it was a blessing or a curse.

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"She came into films after marriage encouraged by her in-laws including her father-in-law. Suchitra Sen married Dibanath Sen, son of industrialist Adinath Sen, in 1947. Her father-in-law Adinath Sen was supportive of her acting in films after her marriage. Her industrialist husband initially invested a lot in her career and gave her all possible support.

Suchitra Sen made a successful entry into Bengali films in 1952, and then a less successful transition to the Bollywood film industry. According to persistent but unconfirmed reports in the Bengali press, her marriage was strained by her success in the film industry."  (Wikipedia)

If her film career was an amazing success, her personal life was disastrous and in the end, she had legally separated with some accusing the husband of domestic violence. He who had encouraged her, in the end could not handle her public life and activities.

Her final years were lived alone and her resolute decision not to show her face essentially was a sign of her inability to face age and time. It's not uncommon for movie stars to become a recluse in later years because the celluloid imagination becomes a bigger fact for the star and the fans than the claw prints of reality.

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The image of Suchitra Sen was not just of a stunningly beautiful woman but one who bought to the surface many characters that sacrificed, endeavoured and always remained romantically faithful. If the pair parted on screen, then even that became an occasion to celebrate because the persona of the actress was not limited to her screen role. She had become literally bigger than her roles. Her characters became her rather than the other way around.

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Which is why her personal life didn't affect her public image. It's possible that her fans, nursing the idealised image of the Bengali middle class could hardly handle the fact that she came from a bad marriage so instead they married her to the other half of their tinsel dream, Uttam Kumar. Uttam-Suchitra was not just a pair on the silver screen; they became one in the public heart. Thus, the audience trounced the reality and it really didn't matter who was misbehaving or getting hurt.  Uttam was always married to Suchitra Sen.

Over time, Suchitra Sen lived a life that was also distant from the romantic sari wearing eternal middle class women whom everyone adored but it didn't matter because it's only the fantasy that was real to the crowd.

Was she therefore to be blamed if she had done most people a favour by becoming a recluse?

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Suchitra Sen tried the Hindi film world but it didn't work. Nor did she get to act in a Ray film or a Raj Kapoor star offer. She retired full time at 48 years when the beauty that drove people to insanity begun to fade. Her last film was a flop and she understood the sign of times. Just as her personality was maturing as her beauty was morphing into something 'richer', she bid good-bye. More than anyone else, she herself knew Roma had died long before and Suchitra Sen could only be that flaming beauty on the screen. One persona she had killed to become another and with age both succumbed to space and time. Suchitra had no option but to disappear to indeed stay alive.

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Suchitra Sen was a child of public imagination, aspiration, dream and fantasy, and cannot die. She shall live on in that ethereal space forever. Few were as beautiful as she was and she gave a visual shape to the longing of the idealised woman everyone sought. In doing so she blurred her public and personal reality and in the end it's the unreal that triumphed. It was a victory of collective imagination.

It's reported that in her dying days she had wanted to be interred in Pabna, her ancestral homeland. It's more than ironical. It's almost as if after a lifetime of being Suchitra Sen she wanted be Roma Sen again.

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Afsan Chowdhury is a journalist, activist and writer.