Sushmita Sen with father Subir at a city multiplex. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

Amare pachhey sohoje bojho, Taito eto lilar chhol, Bahirey jobe hashir chhota, Bhetore thake ankhir jol?

Sushmita Sen believes in coming home with Tagore. Eleven years ago, when she was here on her first trip as a celebrity after winning the Ms Universe crown, the Delhi girl had sung Ami chini go chini tomare on All India Radio to convince Calcuttans of her Bengali roots. This time it was poetry, “taught by Baba”, that she recited to drive home her support of the fight against female infanticide in a country smiling on the surface, with tears and fears underneath.

Lounging in her hotel suite after an impassioned plea for the cause of the film Matrubhoomi, in which she does not star, Sushmita breaks into a girlish giggle on being reminded of her maiden Tagore rendition. “Daddy (Subir Sen) used to say I was horribly off key and lacked any sense of pitch. But my daughter Ren?e carries the song off so perfectly. And she is not even six!”

It was five-and-a-half years ago that Sushmita brought home a baby girl from an orphanage in Mumbai. “Surprisingly, there were no doubts in my family. Perhaps since I was such a nutcase Ma had an idea that I’d end up doing something like that one day.” The memory of the night before she went to fetch Ren?e is vivid in her mind. “Baba sat with me and said, ‘Sonama, this is human life. After a couple of days, you just can’t get bored and say you can’t do it any more.’”

Sushmita’s father had to write off everything in the child’s name as per legal requirements. “He did so without a blink.” She herself had fears, “but then which mother doesn’t? We all graduate as a mother”.

The Calcutta members of the Sen family have assembled in the hotel room to speak to Ren?e. The speakerphone cackles with a high-pitched volley of words from the other side.

“She is an unbelievable child. She has been raised to respect time. All I have to say is “I am working” to get her away. She is very particular about time in her own life too. In the morning, she is the one to chew her nanny’s head to go to school ? ‘Daima chalo, teacher dantegi.’”

Sushmita has this tip for working mothers. “One should not be on a guilt trip. Otherwise, the child also will start believing that one is doing something wrong by going to work.”

She takes Ren?e to the sets only when the shooting continues out of town at a stretch and school (Beacon High in Bandra) is closed. “We went to Satara for the shooting of Chingari. Poor thing, of all the glamorous places...”

But Ren?e loves shooting. “During Main Hoon Na, Farah (Khan) taught her to do the calling on the mike. She would drive everyone crazy by shouting ‘Silence, lights, camera, Mama... action.”

Ren?e and Randeep Hooda, the man in Sushmita’s life, are “royal buddies”. “He is teaching her horse-riding. Ren?e thinks she is a rock star on horseback. Sometimes I hear her telling him, ‘Aap hath jao bhaiya’. I have strictly forbidden that. But when the two are on their own, I shudder to think what they do.”

Sushmita has seen D and is enjoying the adulation being heaped on Randeep, the film’s hero. She is planning to gift him a scrapbook of cuttings containing his interviews and reviews. “When you love someone, you want to give him things that money can’t buy.”

The phone is back in her hand after the rounds of the relatives. “Tumi lakshmi hoye thako, sonai. Ami ekhuni ashchi,” she promises as she readies for the flight back home. Back to the ones of her heart.