Suchitra changed cinema’s image of a woman

extract
Sen was the quintessential working woman, who effortlessly portrayed the dedicated professional woman in many of her films; someone who attempted to create a balance between the demands of love and romance and work

Within Bengali cinema, traditional gender roles and a renewed emphasis on the value of the home contributed to what might be called a ‘domestic revival’ in the mid-1950s. Suchitra Sen was a product of this time and was a living celluloid evidence of sexist gender representation in the films that saw her rise to the top.

But looked at in retrospect, if one were to look closely enough, one could perhaps be able to discover finer arguments within the narrative and the characterization of the leading lady that supported a woman’s right to choose the way she wanted to lead her life.

If she sacrificed her terms for her love for a man such as in ‘Harano Sur’, that too was her choice. If she refused to abort her unborn child because she was not married in ‘Hospital’, she did that, too, and led the life of a single mother, supporting herself and her son with her earnings as a qualified doctor.

Therefore, even within the framework of a strongly patriarchal ideology, the films of Suchitra Sen were not degrading to women and by and large, beneath the surface, tried not to reinforce patriarchal values. The dignified persona of Suchitra Sen, on screen and off it, helped uphold the dignity of a woman even when she was a courtesan in ‘Uttar Phalguni’.

Any film about a woman in equal partnership with the man she loves-be it her husband or her lover-in strength, intelligence and independence, would not have been accepted by the audience in the 1950s through the 60s and 70s in Bengali or Indian cinema. In spite of the optimistic image, it would not have reached the audience because it would have seemed foreign and somewhat unacceptable at the time.

Looked at from this point, it becomes interesting to read some significant films of Suchitra Sen against the grain, trying to show that she is as independent and as modern as today’s women are, though she fits into the moral and socially acceptable framework for women at the time. Her arrival in Bengali cinema predates the time-space paradigm of feminist readings of Indian cinema. Yet, her films taken together form a focal point.
Working Women

The term ‘working women’ specifically refers to women whose work is economically productive and involves exchange value in cash or kind or both. In this sense, the term would apply to the courtesan in ‘Uttar Phalguni’ as much as it would apply to the single mother who works to bring up her child in ‘Hospital’. ‘Working women’ would refer to the widest range of economic and productive activities from a nurse in a psychiatric ward in ‘Deep Jele Jai’, to a sex worker in ‘Mondo Meyer Upakhyan’ (2002) or a saleswoman as in Satyajit Ray’s ‘Mahanagar’ (1963).

There are at least three terms, namely female participation in labour market, labour force and workforce, which are used interchangeably while analysing women’s participation in economic activities. These terms are indeed related, but denote different dimensions. While labour force includes all types of employment status, labour market participation excludes unpaid family workers who do not enter the market.

Similarly, labour force consists of both employed and unemployed, whereas workforce captures only those who are employed. Given the primary intent of the present research, women’s participation in the workforce that is, paid work is the preferred focus of this research, and integral to it.
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Suchitra Sen as a working woman
Before embarking on an analysis of Sen’s representation on screen as a working woman, one may point out that Suchitra Sen was a working woman right through her adult life that spanned nearly three long decades. One does not quite know at first hand whether there was some intercutting between her real life as a working woman and her screen roles as working women.

One is, however, aware that she slowly became a single working mother to her daughter along the way during her career after her separation from her husband and after his demise. She was independent in the sense that she made her own decisions about her career choices and on how she would bring up her only child Moon Moon Sen.

But this very ‘independence’ also vested her with the financial, emotional and social responsibility of running her family alone, all by herself. According to her close family members, including her daughter, she was against her daughter joining films. Her emphasis was on a strong and solid foundation in education which she herself did not get but ensured that her daughter did.

But when her daughter joined films after she was married and became a mother, Sen could do nothing about it and refrained from interfering. Sen has portrayed the working woman in several films opposite Uttam Kumar. Notable ones among them are ‘Indrani’, ‘Harano Sur’, ‘Saptapadi’, ‘Sabar Uparey’, ‘Haar Mana Haar’, etc. But in most films where she was paired with Uttam Kumar, the ‘working woman’ identity was almost rendered invisible in the narrative except in two major films, ‘Indrani’ and ‘Harano Sur’. …

The films in which she played a single working woman chosen here include ‘Deep Jele Jai’, ‘Hospital’, ‘Uttar Phalguni’/‘ Mamta’ and ‘Aandhi’. These films do not necessarily back feminist readings of the texts because the female protagonist is not a slogan-raising, flag hoisting feminist by any stretch of imagination. However, she is a working woman, and the protagonist’s working life is presented in different manifestations in these four films.
- (Excerpt from Suchitra Sen: The Legend and the Enigma by Shoma A Chatterji; Published by Harper Collins; 350)