Three decades after Suchitra Sen walled herself in her home, Bengal and the country continues to be smitten by her mystique. But the actress remains what she was — a mystery wrapped in an enigma

The old bungalow, remembers Kolkata-based realtor Pradip Chopra, was in no position to withstand another season in the rain. When his men finally went about razing it, it “simply demolished itself”, making way for a modern apartment to come up. Suchitra Sen, the owner of the property, was not particularly nostalgic about losing a chunk of her past. “All she wanted,” Chopra muses, almost 15 years later, “was that a portion of the terrace in the new apartment be exclusively reserved for her.”

Being exclusive has never been an area of concern for veteran Bengali actor Suchitra Sen. Every time her name has cropped up in public discussions — be it last year when Sen’s name emerged as a frontrunner for the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, or early this month during the actor’s birthday on April 6 — Sen’s singularity has kept speculation rife in India and across Bengal. Nothing, though, could drag her out from her Ballygunj Circular Road apartment where she has remained incommunicado, and possibly unmoved, for the last 29 years. 

Yet, on screen, across three decades and 53 Bengali and seven Hindi films, the actor fleshed out a stature so special that “young ladies in Kolkata fashioned their personalities around her and mothers copied the suave sway of her head,” according to film scholar Sanjoy Mukhopadhyay.

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