Paper short abstract:

I analyse the constructions of performative multiple and conflicting ‘selves’ as seen in life narratives of Bengali woman superstar Suchitra Sen(1931-2014). I examine the triad of sensual glamour queen, bhadramahila and reclusive sanyasin to excavate a map of conflicts of traditional and modern.

Paper long abstract:

This paper analyses the constructions of a performative self as seen in the life narratives of perhaps the only woman superstar Suchitra Sen(1931-2014) who dominated Bengali popular cinema in the 1950s-70s. My paper tracks the multiple sites of these narratives—film texts, star biographies, interviews, film advertisements, and fiction—to excavate the contours of a 'bhadramahila' self (genteel middle class) that her performances exhibit. Drawing on filmic, written, online and photographic sources, my paper will analyse significant shifts in the performance of gender (Butler) that these sites display. While in her heyday, her star text was calibrated very carefully along the grids of sensual beauty and glamour, her retirement is marked by a curious re-invention of her star persona as the reclusive sadhika figure.I will address the following questions: What might be the reasons for the unease that is visible in the film magazines of the 1950s -60s around the glamorous and sensuous star image of Suchitra Sen? Why has she been 'remade' as a renouncer figure? Is a star self also determined or circumscribed by gender under patriarchy? Focusing on the multiple and conflicting 'selves' of Suchitra Sen's I will argue how this triad of the sensual/ glamour queen, the elite married bhadramahila and the reclusive sanyasin offers a fascinating map of the traditional and the modern, colliding to chart out a Janus faced modernity(Gyan Prakash). Can this map of Janus faced modernity enable an entry into performances of gender of women's life narratives in the Indian context?