Swatilekha Sengupta

For me Swatilekha Sengupta means the film ‘Bela Sheshe’. I dont remember much about the film but I remember the scene where she is saying that she likes everything about her husband. After he leaves the bathroom, she likes the smell while the other members cover their noses. This is the mundaneness and reality of human life.

What brings to my mind is Swatilekha and Soumitra – both are Brahmins by birth and their ease at delivering mundane and intimate scenes on screen. Interestingly, she always identified herself with the last name Sengupta though her first husband and her birth family were Brahmins.

In an interview before her death, she had expressed her deep passion for theatre, almost a dying art in absence of state patronage. She was a very good student, who earned a first class first degree in BA and MA in English from Banaras Hindu University.