Smita's tears on Mrinal Sen's sets
What were Mrinal Sen’s first impressions of the legendary Smita Patil? In his memoir, Sen wrote that the look in her eyes was that of his actress wife, Geeta Sen. The look was what he described as a beautiful blend of being coy and expressive.
Smita played the lead in Akaler Sandhane. In his words, she was “extraordinarily ordinary” – someone who was too grounded to ever seem like an actress in real life. Yet it was the same Smita who transformed magically to be in sync with her character of that of an actress. Stories hark back to the time of the shoot when Smita would cook her own vegetarian food on a stove while rest of the unit survived mostly on fish. Many don’t know how Smita would get intensely involved during shooting. Once, shooting was in progress for a scene that didn’t even require her. Yet, she came and stood behind Mrinal, her hand placed on his shoulder to watch what was happening. The shot involved a newly-widowed woman, counseled by two others, crying profusely and saying: “Aami aar oghore jete parbo na (I will never be able to return to that room”. Mrinal suddenly noticed that Smita, moved by the scene, placed her hand on his shoulder and wept inconsolably.
It was almost a similar reaction during the briefing of a scene that involved Smita herself. A day before the shoot, Mrinal explained the shot to her. It came to pass that Durga (the character played by Sreela Mazumdar) would not accept the wages Smita had offered to her after hearing that her son was ill and advised her not to step out of the house. But Durga’s paralysed-yet-self respecting husband didn’t endorse taking money that way. This scene had the two women meet where Durga would return the money to her saying she wouldn’t come back to work.
Smita just went numb while listening to this. Her eyes welled up. Then, she started picking at her lunch plate. Lowering her head, she softly asked: “Can’t I meet Durga once?” So moved was she that she couldn’t even finish her lunch that day. The film foreshadows how a film actor is finally affected by the reality of what she portrays. Truth and fiction melded into each other that one day.