PAPIA SENGUPTA

Back in the high life again

After a lon hiatus, Papia Sengupta is back to doing serials. Besides that, she also has other plans up her sleeve and that includes a tilt at the big-screen, and marriage.

Hailing from a conservative middle-class family, Papia Sengupta didn’t really grow up with stars in her eyes. Acting was actually an after thought. She wanted to get into computers. But she got into show business by fluke when a friend got her small roles in Krishna and Alif Laila. Stunning and sultry, she was spotted in those bit roles and soon invited to the late Sanjiv Bhattacharya’s college.

She joined the Campus gang in 1994-end and it didn’t take her very long to become a talked-about and much-gossiped siren of the small screen. Talked not so much for her performances in Campus and subsequent serials but for her alleged affair with the late Sanjiv Bhattacharya.

But while the dust of gossip did not subside, Papia got busy with serials like O Maria, Shatranj, Umeed and Rahat. “I worked like a mad person,” she recollects. “I used to shoot day in and day out.” The strain took its toll and Papia fell ill with low blood pressure and anaemia.

On recovering, she again started working. Campus had ended and she was busy with Tracinema's Shatranj, Umeed and Rahat. Then in a sudden decision Zee axed all Trancinema serials and Papia was without work. Instead of waiting for offers, Papia decided to take a break.

Why a break at a time when she was doing so well for herself? “I was getting over-exposed,” she reasons. “Besides, I was not in the pink of my health and needed rest. I was getting lot of offers but I had decided not to work for some time and went to stay with my sister.” But how did the “some time” interregnum last for one and half years?

“Just when I wanted to get back to work, I got an attack of malaria which relapsed after some time. I became very weak and lost weight and was advised complete bed-rest. So for almost one year I stayed at home. In fact, Sanjivji had offered me a role in Amanat but I refused because I was not well.”

Though the break was necessary and she felt nice doing nothing, she admits that she missed the fast life, glamour and limelight. So six months back she felt the need to work again and came back to stay in her PG accommodation in Mumbai which happens to be in the neighbourhood of her late mentor Bhattacharya’s residence and the duo decided to work on a project.

“Our relationship was not of an actress and director,” she explains. “We were great friends and he used to confess a lot of things to me. But at the same time I respected him a lot because he was my godfather and idol. I used to visit his house often because it was like a second home to me. I used to play with his children and help them in their studies. He had an affair with Smita Bansal and she harassed him a lot. He wanted her out of his life and he asked me to help him sort out the matter which I tried my best to do.”

So the close relationship, as rumours had it, culminated into an affair. “No, it didn’t,” she denies emphatically. “I could never imagine having an affair with him because I respected him a lot. I don’t know how to prove it but it’s a fact that I never got physical with him.” But wasn’t she supposed to get married to him? “He did propose because I was very close to his children, but I refused,” she confesses candidly.

Papia was also very close to Sanjiv's wife Geeta and her death was a terrible shock to Papia. So was Sanjiv's death. “I felt miserable, losing someone so close,” she says emotionally. After Sanjiv's death she decided to make a comeback on the boob-tube. She has done an episode of Ajeeb Daastan, and is doing Tracinema's X Zone and Reena Wadhwa’s Neeyat, in which she plays a struggler who makes it big in showbiz.

In the pipeline are two serials, Basera and Chupke Chupke and Viraasat.

Papia maintains that she had her sights set on the movies. But the offers she got weren’t all that exciting. And then here were strings attached to them. So she decided to do television, which, in comparison, she insists, is safer and cleaner. But doesn’t she want to check out the big screen now? “Of course, I want to,” she admits. “But if I work in movies it will be only for big banners.”

She is very, very ambitious and her ambition is to become a big and famous actress and star. Surprisingly this ambitious glam-babe wants to settle down in life after two-three years. And she will settle down for an arranged marriage — with a man who will have nothing to do with showbiz. The reason? “After seeing so many break-ups it will be unwise to get married to someone who is in showbiz. There is lot of insecurity in this line and the guys especially are a lot more insecure. Insecurity in professional life can cause lot of problems in personal life,” she reasons wisely.
But the prime question is, will this ambitious glam-babe work after marriage? “Of course,” she asserts. “I will never give up acting till my ambition is fulfiled.”