Legendary actress Suchitra Sen turns 80

So, why this self-confinement? Let's contemplate the reasons behind Suchitra secluding herself from the public.

"The core of Suchitra's existence as a star, is her immense popularity. So, when she decides to confine herself from public, that obviously does create a hubbub in the society," says Suchitra's contemporary Madhobi Chakrabarty. If the public reaction were different, that would have been odd.

To comprehend Suchitra's reasoning, one has to follow the chain of events that occurred prior to her self-exile.

Suchitra's last movie was Pranay Pasha released in 1978. The number of films she was doing was decreasing in the 1970s. Among her last movies, except for Aandhi, there was no major hit. The same goes for her co-star Uttam Kumar, the prominent actor with whom Suchitra formed one of the most popular 'on-screen' pairs on the silver screen in those times. Two years after Pranay Pasha was released, Uttam passed away and Suchitra officially secluded herself from the movie world. Uttam's untimely death sealed all the possibilities of future 'Uttam-Suchitra' movies. Any 'Uttam-Suchitra' fan would agree that without Uttam, Suchitra's existence on the silver screen was incomplete, even Suchitra knew that. She also realised that to survive in the rat race of the movie world on her own, she would need another co-star with acting excellence.

Although, Suchitra was known for her acting skills, her claim to fame was her screen presence, exquisite facial expressions and her knowledge of camera angles that would present her in a way few actresses can boast of.

Her divine beauty on the screen was presented in a more profound way by the skilled cameramen of her time. During her last days as an actress, she did not get that skilled film-crew to work with her.

"Suchitra did not come to Taliganj with dreams of becoming an actress. Her arrival in the movie world was more or less a necessity," says her confidante, director Asit Sen. He feels that even Suchitra did not realise that she could become a legend in time. It seems that she started acting in movies for financial reasons. Hence, acting in movies was basically just 'work' to her. However, she attained a certain level of acting skills. There's a difference between actors who consider acting as their only passion and actors who see acting merely as 'work'. Hence, when the need to work ceases to exist, these actors don't hesitate to retire. This was another prime reason why Suchitra stopped signing contracts for movies, even though it was not easy for her.

With age, artistes become "Didi", "Kaki" etc to their fellow artistes, Suchitra never responded to anything else but "Mrs Sen".

So, to sum it all up, Uttam's untimely death, aging, lack of need to work any more, made Suchitra overly self-conscious and this resulted in her leaving the cine-world.

Her departure from the silver screen and Bangla films, in particular, her isolation from her fans and public is prompted by her need to be remembered as the ageless, classic wonder, that is Suchitra.

Courtesy :Anandalok