A new book about Aparna Sen, the star who became an indie film pioneer

Mint

a day ago

In 1961, exactly 20 years prior to her directorial debut with 36 Chowringhee Lane, the world was introduced to Aparna Sen, née Dasgupta, the daughter of eminent film critic Chidananda Dasgupta, as the young Mrinmoyee of 'Samapti', a part of Satyajit Ray's Teen Kanya (1961). Sen says that this was in keeping with the fact that she had always wanted to be an actor, and her parents indulged her dreams and even promised to send her abroad to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.
In 1969, she returned in a brief role in Ray's cinema to play Samit Bhanja's love interest in Aranyer Din Ratri. While her career as an actor was not exactly stellar to begin with, very soon she went on to become one of the most popular actresses of Bengali cinema. Her pairing with some of the top male stars of the industry, such as Uttam Kumar and Soumitra Chatterjee, lent a certain sheen and appeal to her films and made her an extremely popular star in turn. Bhranti Bilas (1963), Baksa Badal (1970) and Jay Jayanti (1970) continue to remain some of her most popular films. Even as an actress, she played the roles of educated, working and empowered women, so it really does not come as a surprise that the women in the cinema which she would go on to create would be superior creatures compared to the men therein.
While she does not like to talk about her career as an actress, it is worthwhile to probe her career as one. Most of the earlier films she acted in—being products of the mainstream Tollygunge-based Bengali film industry—fetched stardom and an iconic status for her, which have still not waned. Aparna Sen is not only one of a very small group of female actors-turned-directors (others include Sai Paranjpye, Hema Malini, Pooja Bhatt, Nandita Das and Revathi), but also the best known of them. She is recognized not only for her direction and acting, but also as a cultural and sociopolitical commentator. She was also the editor of the immensely popular Bengali magazine called Sananda from 1986 to 2005, when Madhumita Chattopadhyay took over as the editor-in-chief….
Like Sharmila Tagore who made her cinematic debut with Ray, Aparna Sen too straddled both worlds—she appeared in parallel or art films while having a remarkable presence in the 'commercial' genre of Bengali cinema in which she was often cast opposite the matinee idol Uttam Kumar. However, as Sen repeatedly expresses with displeasure, she was never happy acting in commercial films, and given her exposure to world cinema and other avant-garde art forms, she was extremely critical of such films with clichéd plots, a lack of innovation in form and content, and melodramatic acting. In fact, her condescension towards the commercial film earned her the tag 'snob' within the film industry.
The first draft of her debut film as a director, 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981), as Sen likes to recount, came into being in the make-up room of a Bombay studio, as she waited to be called for the next shot of one of those many commercial films she could not intellectually connect to: 'I began writing a short story out of exasperation. I asked myself whether I should continue to act in such films in which I did not believe.' Sen did not stop acting in these films, though. For that earned her a livelihood. But she was creatively inclined to art-house cinema which, however, did not have as many viewers.
In the 1960s and 1970s, she acted in films as aesthetically diverse as Akash Kusum (1965) directed by Mrinal Sen, and Satyajit Ray's Aranyer Din Ratri, at the same time as a commercially successful film such as Jay Jayanti (1971) with the reigning superstar of the day, Uttam Kumar, as well as others such as Mem Saheb (1972), Basanta Bilap (1973), Rater Rajanigandha (1973), Chhutir Phande (1974) and Proxy (1977), and several others that soon followed. And in all of them, Aparna Sen was portrayed as a sophisticated, sometimes rather westernized, if not too radical, woman. In recent years, she has become extremely selective about acting in films. If she happens to appear in one at all, it is usually in a meaningful role, central to the plot. Her last film was the Mandira Basu-directed Basu Paribar (loosely based on James Joyce's 'The Dead') in 2019, where she played Soumitra Chatterjee's wife.
In her later films, Sen—who evolved with changing times—continued to play emancipated urban characters, often breaking stereotypes and emerging iconic in her dignified rebellion against patriarchal norms. One such film was Rituparno Ghosh's Unishe April (1994), which dramatized a widowed dancer's difficult relationship with her daughter, who failed to empathize with her mother's uncompromising pursuit of her career and apparent neglect of her household. In Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury's 2009 film Antaheen, she played the role of a successful journalist-cum-photographer who prioritized her career over family and lost it. In Srijit Mukherji's 2018 film Ek Je Chhilo Raja, she played the role of the prosecution lawyer who came across as an independent and fiery individual.
Excerpted with permission from Rupa. The book will be available for sale next week.