Suchitra Sen: passing of enigmatic recluse goddess of Indian cinema who has shut out world for 3 decades

“I never said, ‘I want to be alone’. I only said, ‘I want to be left alone’. 

There is a world of difference.”

Suchitra Sen? No, Greta Garbo.

The screen goddess who was the most famous hermit of New York for years would often take long walks through the streets dressed in oversized clothes and wearing large sunglasses to avoid prying eyes.

The screen goddess who has been the most famous hermit of Calcutta for three decades has confined herself to her Ballygunge Circular Road house, surrounding herself with a chosen few and immersing herself in a life of spirituality.

“Garbo wasn’t a true recluse as she went out in public,” said Rachel Dwyer, the British academic, author of a number of books on Hindi cinema.

So, Suchitra has done a Garbo better than Garbo.

 It will forever remained a secret how reclusive actress Suchitra Sen, who was hardly seen in public in the last 35 years, looked in her last days.

So will a glimpse of today’s Suchitra Sen shatter the three-decade-old enigma? Sanjay Mukhopadhyay, professor of film studies at Jadavpur University, thinks not. “A myth was created around Greta Garbo when she went into oblivion. We too have created a myth around Suchitra Sen. Her aura is based on the photographic reality in our memory, it is built around her star status. It is huge and I don’t think the real image on television can demystify her.”

Silver-haired and chubby, Suchitra seemed to “have a kind of spiritual glow on her face”, observed Sabitri.

Sources in the Sen household said she does indeed spend her days surrounded by spiritual texts and is visited only by monks. Access is denied to all other outsiders by the core group of her daughter Moon Moon, son-in-law Bharat and her granddaughters.

“Her only link with filmdom is the work of Raima and Riya. Otherwise, she does not watch films and even makes it a point to turn off the TV or switch channels if an old movie of hers is showing,” said a source.

This can be explained by Dwyer’s analysis of the Garbo-Sen reclusion syndrome: “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.”

If Garbo had ruled the silver screen from 1920 to 1941 and then gone into shock retirement, Sen was the heartthrob of hundreds from 1953 to 1978 before slamming the doors shut on the world.

“It’s sad if people can’t respect someone else’s privacy. But no one can take away what my grandmother is and will always be,” Riya said in the evening.

She is right. Suchitra Sen is and will always be an enigma.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090118/jsp/frontpage/story_10406617.jsp 

Suchitra Sen (6 April 1931 – 17 January 2014),  
was the first Indian actress to receive an award at an international film festival when, at the 1963 Moscow International Film Festival, she won the Silver Prize for Best Actress for Saat Paake Bandha. In 1972, she was awarded the Padma Shri, one of the highest civilian awards in India. From 1979 on, she retreated from public life and shunned all forms of public contact; for this she is often compared to Greta Garbo. In 2005, she refused the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest cinematic award in India, to stay out of the public eye. In 2012, she was conferred the West Bengal Government's highest honour: Banga Bibhushan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suchitra_Sen