Today (April 6) is the 93rd birth anniversary of Bengali cinema’s legendary heroine Suchitra Sen. On this occasion, Pabna district administration and Suchitra Sen Smriti Sanwar Parishad Pabna separately organized a memorial meeting at her memorial house. The Ministry of Cultural Affairs is cooperating in this.
Suchitra Sen Memorial Preservation Parishad said that a different dimension has been added to Suchitra Sen’s birthday this year. Because the Suchitra Sen International Film Festival will be held on April 20 and 21 in Jamaica, New York around her 93rd birthday. So far, more than four hundred films have been submitted for the festival.
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The father’s house of this legendary heroine of Bengali films of the subcontinent is in Gopalpur Hemsagar Lane of Pabna city. She studied at Mahakali Pathshala here and Pabna Government Girls High School till Class IX.
After moving to India with the family, the house was first leased to an educational institution under the supervision of the district administration and then run by the Jamaat. After many agitations and legal battles, the house was cleared in 2015 and returned to the district administration. Since 2004, the Suchitra Sen Smriti Sanwar Parishad has been organizing various programs every year to preserve the memory of Suchitra Sen and to remember her.
Suchitra Sen was born on April 6, 1931 in Sen Bhangabari village of Belkuchi Upazila of Greater Pabna (now Sirajganj). Suchitra Sen’s childhood, childhood and adolescence were spent in the one-storeyed ancestral house on Hemsagar Lane in Gopalpur Mohalla, Pabna.
His father Karunamoy Dasgupta was working as Sanitary Inspector of Pabna Municipality. Mother Indira Dasgupta was a housewife. Among the two sisters, Suchitra Sen was the elder. Younger sister Hena Dasgupta. After studying at the city’s Mahakali Pathshala, Suchitra Sen studied at the local Pabna Girls’ School till Class IX. He showed skill in singing and acting in drama theater in various events of Pabna city. His family name was Rama Dasgupta.
A few months before the Partition in 1947, his father Karunamay Dasgupta Pabna left his home, job and left everything with his family to India. Suchitra Sen also left with the family. Rama Dasgupta got married to Dibanath Sen, the son of Banedi family there, after a couple of years of going to Calcutta.
A daughter of an upper middle class family in Pabna, Rama became a bride of the Banedi family and got involved in acting in films as well as in the household. After starting acting in movies, the name was Suchitra Sen. After two and a half years of marriage, in 1952, she acted for the first time in a Bengali movie named ‘Sheh Kair’.
The movie was not released due to unknown reasons. Then in 1953, her first movie as a heroine was released in the movie ‘Prisoner Number Seven’. Suchitra Sen acted continuously in Bengali cinema for 35 years from 1953 to 1978.
Suchitra Sen has acted as heroine in 56 Bengali and 7 Hindi movies in total 63 movies. Paired with Uttam Kumar created a huge stir. When Uttam Kumar died in 1978, he stopped acting in films.
In 1963, Suchitra Sen won the Silver Prize for Best Actress at the Moscow Film Festival for her performance in the film ‘Saat Pakhe Bandha’. She was the first Indian actress to win an award at an international film festival.
The Government of India also awarded him the Padma Shri. In 2005, when he was offered the Dada Saheb Phalke award, he did not accept it as he did not want to appear in public.
In 2012, the highest honor of the West Bengal government was given the Bangabibhushan. In 1955, she won the best actress award for the movie Devdas. He passed away in India on January 17, 2014.
