Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 9, 2020)

I was just a schoolgirl when I saw Bimal Roy’s 1955 tragic love story, Devdas, for the first time on Doordarshan. And like so many others, was mesmerised by his Parvati. Even in black and white, Suchitra Sen’s luminous beauty shone through, lighting up the frame when Dilip Kumar as Devdas, livid at being rejected by his Paro for a letter he’s long since regretted writing, says through gritted teeth, “Yeh roop tumhara... itna roop achcha nahin hai.” Then, to put a chand-like daag on her chiselled features to dent her haughty pride, he lashes out with his stick, “Aao tumhare chehre pe aisa hi daag bana de.” As it catches her on the forehead, spilling blood, his face reflects not just his anger, but also his pain and torment.

This scene has stayed with me for decades and it didn’t come as a surprise to learn that Tollygunge’s Mrs Sen had landed the role on the rebound, after Meena Kumari had reluctantly turned it down. She gave her nod because it was the first Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay story offered to her and for its director. It is said that when they were shooting in Mumbai, visitors crowded into Mohan Studio to catch a glimpse of the famous beauty and Bengal’s rising star. No one went away disappointed even though the lady herself stayed aloof and untouched by the adoration.

On Suchitra Sen’s 89th birth anniversary (she entered the world on April 6, 1931), I reached out to Dharmendra, who is at his farm, following the Coronavirus outbreak. The duo had worked together in Asit Sen’s 1966 film Mamta. A Hindi remake of his 1963 Bengali film, Uttar Falguni, it featured her in a double role, as the beautiful Devyani who, after a hellish marriage, becomes the dancing girl Panna Bai, and her lookalike daughter Suparna, whom she is ready to protect with her life. Ashok Kumar played Monish Rai, the man the mother has always loved even after she lost him, while Dharamji was cast as the barrister, Indraneel, who woos the daughter.

“Suchitra was a picture of beauty and after seeing her in Devdas, I had been dreaming of working with her. It is said that when you want something dil se, the universe conspires to give it to you,” Dharamji informs over the wire, and one can almost picture him smile.

They shot the film in New Theatres, a Kolkata studio, and in Darjeeling. Dharamji shares that when they were in the hill station, after ‘pack-up’ he would sometimes go for a drive with his leading lady and her sister. “In the darkness, I couldn’t see the ravines flanking the narrow mountain roads on either side. But the next morning, she would point them out to me, saying, ‘Look Dharam, you were zooming down this road like a racing car driver last night,’ and we would laugh. We had some good times together on that film. Mamta, for all its intensity on screen, was so much fun, like a picnic,” he laughs, recalling that his heroine had always told him that she loved his smile.

Dharamji’s recollections of the desi Garbo are very different from public perception of Suchitra Sen, as a lady who always stood apart in the studios, and after she stepped out of the spotlight, was consciously never seen in public again. “She was a lovely lady and a very mature actress,” he avers.

Prod him on his favourite scene and he zeroes in on the one where Ashok Kumar, from afar, points him out to the older Suchitra as the man he has picked for her daughter. “It was a romantic moment between the younger couple where we are unaware of being watched. However, I knew, I had to somehow convey to the mother that I am in love with Suparna. Suchitra was wearing a sari, the blouse cut low at the back, and as the camera rolled, I bent down and spontaneously dropped a kiss on her back. It wasn’t in the script, but when we saw the shot later, everyone agreed that my unrehearsed gesture added a lot to the scene and it was retained,” Dharmendra reminisces, adding that he had hoped to do many more films with one of his favourite heroines, but she preferred to anchor herself to Bengali cinema and the only other Hindi film she did was Gulzar’s Aandhi in 1975 with Sanjeev Kumar.

However, Dharmendra stayed in touch and they often spoke on the phone. And once, when he was in the City of Joy for the opening of a lab, he dropped by her residence. “Hema (Malini) was with me on the occasion and it was wonderful meeting her again. For me, Kolkata will always be associated with Rabindranath Tagore… and Suchitra Sen,” he says emotionally, admitting that they had lost touch in the last few years of her life. “I had heard that she wasn’t keeping well and I wondered about her, wishing I could go visit. But, by then, she wasn’t keen on having visitors and I respected her need for privacy. When I learnt that she was gone, I was shattered. It was like I had lost a family member.”

For me, Dharamji is as much a talented actor as he is a brilliant poet. Every time we chat, he leaves me with one of his couplets. Does he have a piece of poetry he’d like to dedicate to her on her birth anniversary, I wonder. Pat comes the reply, “Padte hi unpar, Jhuk jaati thi meri nazar, Iss darr se ki nazar na lag jaaye unhe meri nazar se…”