Mahanayika

Production

The original working title of the film was Nayika, but the director Saikat Bhakat changed it to Mahanayika. In January 2015, it was revealed that debutante director Saikat Bhakat had brought Rituparna Sengupta aboard her project Mahanayika to play the lead role of Rituparna Sengupta, and even though inspired by the life of Suchitra Sen the project would not be a biopic.

Plot

Shakuntala Sen (Rituparna Sengupta) is the princess of the glamour world. Her lover Aniruddha Mukherjee (Saheb Chatterjee) is a hero. Aniruddha’s father Arindam (Soumitra Chatterjee) is the biggest producer of the film world. Shakuntala’s would be father in law wants a hold on her career. Somehow Shakuntala agrees when she counts it as a question of stability of her future, as most of women do.

A new difficulty arises when detective officer Priyabrato Roy (Indraneil Sengupta) arrives in her life like a villain at this point who exhumes the black incidents from her past. Priyabrato victimizes Shakuntala one after another. We see her to go to bed with Priyabrato finding no way out. But at the end, we become puzzled to see Shakuntala when she discovers she has fallen in love in Priyabrato and instead of giving up her career she breaks relation with Mukherjee family.

She crosses the limit of `Ashtonayika’ to be Ninth and from her beginnings as a common regional film heroine, becomes an idol of the world. Shakuntala Sen then becomes the Diva Mahanayika.