Art & Entertainment

Mom Who Would Not Blink At The Camera

Leading divas in Bengal’s new commercial films are married women with kids who embrace both roles

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Mom Who Would Not Blink At The Camera
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Once she was among Bollywood’s most desirable. But Hema Mal­ini cribbed that the moment she got married she started getting offers to play elderly roles. “Overnight, I went from receiving requests to be Ami­tabh Bachhan’s onscreen love interest to his mother,” she had rued. Many actres­ses—from Nargis to Madhuri Dixit—have met the same cruel fate, and fallen off the A-list once they tied the knot or had children.

But is this utterly chauvinistic practice changing? The debate is nowhere more intensified than in Tollywood, the Bengali film industry. “It is no secret that in the unabashedly male-dominated film industry in India, women have been sidelined the moment they were considered past their prime, which essentially meant when they got married and had children,” points out film historian and critic Shona Chatterjee. But now, there seems to be a whiff of fresh air, at least in Bengal, judging by the impressive list of leading ladies who are mothers—Swastika Muk­he­rjee, Rituparna Sen­gupta, Arpita Chatterjee, Rachna Banerjee, June Malia and Konkona Sen Sharma. These screen divas have neither been denied nor have they shied away from continuing to be female protagonists—including the romantic heroine—in movie after movie.

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In Mainak Bhaumik’s Take One, Swastika, mother to teenaged Anwesha, plays Doel Mitra, an actress whose lovemaking scene with a male model in one of her movies goes viral. In Charulata 2011, veteran Rituparna plays the part of Charu, a lonely wife who falls in love with her husband’s cousin, the onscreen affair consummated in a few intimate scenes. “The fact that my marriage or my motherhood has never been a point of discussion with my producers or directors, forget an impediment, to me landing any role speaks volumes,” says Rituparna. “Even audiences are not judgmental anymore. I don’t think they are thinking, ‘Why is she playing that role...isn’t she married?’ I feel this is a reflection of a change in society, in mindsets.”

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Rituparna Sengupta, mother to an 11-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl, says yoga keeps her fit. “I don’t like going to the gym and I like to eat everything, including cakes, but I eat in moderation.” She claims that her husband, Singapore-based Sanjay, with whom she has what she calls “a long-distance marriage”, “is for the most part understanding, but often complains that I don’t spend eno­ugh time with the family”. Speaking to Outlook from Singapore, Sanjay is earnestly appreciative: “My wife is one of the most hardworking people I know. It is her talent, grit and tenacity which make her successful in career and family.”

Verily, the movie camera is unremittingly harsh on actors; it shows up every bit of embarrassing flab, condemns each sign of stiffness or indiscipline.

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On Song

Rituparna, star of Extraordinaari, with her daughter

Photograph by Sandipan Chatterjee

“The camera captures everything in det­ail and stars, men or women, cannot be slothful. For women, the body is in an alt­ered physical state during pregnancy. Many actors just let go after childbirth and lose out on leading roles. But now for many, Hollywood actresses like Angelina Jolie or Meryl Streep are inspirations on how to spring back into shape after childbirth,” says Rituparna.

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The versatile and glamorous Swastika Mukherjee is not so convinced that the industry has evolved. “Beyond a few progressive directors with a liberal mindset, there is not much positive change to talk about,” she says. “When I entered the industry 13 years ago, I was urged by all to hide the fact that I have a daughter. It would be an impediment, they reasoned, to my being accepted as a romantic heroine. I told them I would declare the fact that I have a daughter at every opportunity and I did do so.” She says a few directors can be credited with red­­e­fining the role of the heroine in today’s cinema.

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Suman Mukhopadhay, who directed Swastika in Asamapto, and Mainak Bhaumik, who directed her (in roles of sassy, seductive yet troubled modern women) in Take One, Ami Aar Amar Girlfriends and Maach, Mishti and More, head her list. In fact, says Swastika, she does not feel that audiences are all that accepting of the so-called strong, independent woman. “They still watch a film like Take One not to laud a woman who is fighting prejudice, discrimination and chauvinism, but to whistle at her for taking off her clothes.”

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Evidently, the leading actresses themselves are divided on the issue. Arpita Chatterjee, 39, says that while she has not faced discrimination, as far as landing roles are concerned after getting married or becoming a mother, she does not discount the difficulties involved for a woman. Whatever the ideal situation, Arp­­ita says, in reality marriage brings profound changes in a woman’s life in terms of her having to make many adjustments. It is not an easy decision to try to juggle both career and family either. In any career, many women do decide to opt out of their careers after marriage and children. “But Indian society has tended to respect a man who’s mature and dependable, partly exp­laining why male actors continue to play lead roles well into their 50s or even later,” she says. Incidentally, Arpita is married to Bengali superstar Prosenjit Chatterjee. They have decided to send their 11-year-old son to boarding school in order to keep him out of the paparazzi’s glare.

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But time was when actors and actresses sent their children off to ensure that their private lives did not become a hindrance to their carefully manicured public persona. As a child, Moon Moon Sen, daughter of the legendary Such­itra Sen, had spent long years at a private boarding school in England. Speaking to Outlook, Moon Moon laughs it off, saying it was rumoured that this was done to ens­ure that the allure and aura of her mother, the “dream girl of Bengali cinema”, was not marred by the an unpalatable marriage and children. Things—both on screen and off it—have certainly changed. Mainstream Bengali cinema—once among the best in Asia—is not just a craven copy of ’80s Bollywood and Telugu melodrama, with depraved villainy threatening nubile womanhood and being thwarted by righteousness—a god­awful tedium broken only by garish song-and-dance routines. New Bengali cinema is snappily urbane and realistic, and need doughty women to play real-life doughty women—often married, often with kids—rushing headlong into a maddening modernity. Enter Swastika, Rituparna, Arpita....

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