A rare picture of Suchitra Sen on the sets of Chandranath (1957). Courtesy: Anindya Shankar Ray

Ranjit Mullick: The dream woman I worked with...

Apart from Debi Chaudhurani, I had done two other films with Mrs Sen which were stopped midway. In fact, my first film as Suchitra Sen’s hero was Chaturanga, directed by Purnendu Pattrea. It was shot before Debi Chaudhurani but got stalled when the producer passed away. Mrs Sen played Damini and I was Sachish (the object of Damini’s desire). Subhendu Chatterjee was Sribilash. The film that we started shooting after Debi Chaudhurani was Krishnakanter Will. It was directed by Dinen Gupta but was shelved after about a week of shooting. Mrs Sen was Rohini and I was Gobindalal.

Back then, I was a rank newcomer and Suchitra Sen was a star. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would one day act with her. I was a huge fan of Uttam-Suchitra during my college days. My friends and I would fight with others and wait in long queues to catch her films. She was the woman of everyone’s dreams. Her smile, her gaze.... She was not just beautiful, she was very attractive too.

It was a strange feeling to act opposite her. Quite naturally, I was in awe of her on the sets. But Mrs Sen made things very easy. She knew that her performance would suffer if her co-actor feels uncomfortable. So she would be quite friendly. But there was still a bit of uneasiness on my part.... What is still fresh in my memory is her tremendous dedication to work.

Prosenjit: The woman who could have been my teacher...

I have watched and studied Uttam-Suchitra films thoroughly and the thing that has always struck me about Suchitra Sen is her style. She was a trendsetter. If you notice the early films of Uttam-Suchitra, you will find that she carried herself far better than Uttam Kumar. After a few years, Uthamjethu caught up with her.

Suchitra Sen is someone who shows you how a heroine of commercial films needs to carry herself on screen. Even in films that were different from the run-of-the mill romantic films, she never lost her glamour. That was an intrinsic part of her being. She’s such a gorgeous mother in Uttar Falguni, for instance. I think she always kept in mind that she had a wide audience who loved her glamorous side and she never wanted to deprive them. I loved her performances most in the films she didn’t star alongside Uttam Kumar. My favourites are Uttar Falguni, Deep Jweley Jai and even Datta. She was double the age of the character she played in Datta but such was her charisma that she could pull it off so brilliantly.

Personally, I rue the fact that she deprived us of a teacher by cutting herself off from us all. Uttamjethu passed away when we started out in the film industry, and there was such a void. I feel she could have taught us a thing or two about films had she just been around. We had so much to learn from her.

Parambrata: The woman who made my Sundays...

She’s my Sundays. That’s how I remember Suchitra Sen. In the early Nineties, Doordarshan used to screen old Bengali films during the weekends and Suchitra Sen filled up the Sundays. I became a fan of Bengali cinema and of Suchitra Sen.

I think she’s a diva in the real sense. There was an aura about her which is fascinating. I have seen rare pictures of her at parties and she was stunning. I don’t think men of my generation have ever fantasised about her; she’s more revered by us. And the fact that she withdrew into her own private world has helped her maintain that aura. More than her beauty and sex appeal, she is important to me because she represented an age — the 50s and 60s which you call the Golden Age of Bengali cinema. She epitomised romantic Bengali cinema of that period.

As a fan, I personally want to go and meet her. Not to find out what she looks like — I think I will fall in love with her even today — but to know about the films of her times. She has been witness to a history of film-making and I want to know from her how things were different back then. The stories of those times... There’s so much to know from her.