Bimal Roy’s first film: New Theatres’ Udayer Pathey (1944) and the socialist dream

This first appeared as "Udayer Pathey: Bimal Roy's realistic inference of socialism" at dearcinema.com on 
January 5, 2013.

Radhamohan Bhattacharya and Binota Bose in the film

Before soaring to pan-India—and, indeed, international—fame with Do Bigha Zameen (1953) that spoke of the travails of Shambhu the peasant, Bimal Roy had, almost a decade earlier, in 1944, become a household name in Bengal with Udayer Pathey (Towards the dawn), his directorial debut in Bengali for Calcutta’s New Theatres, remade in Hindi as Humrahi in 1945. The hugely successful Udayer Pathey, made by New Theatres on the smallest budget, actually became the studio’s biggest earner. The music was by Raichand Boral and the lyrics by Shailen Roy—in addition, the film featured three very memorable Tagore songs.

Bimal Roy’s works all have a distinct flavor of social realism about them, and Udayer Pathey is steeped in that flavor. It is the story of Anup Chaudhuri, an intrepid writer-intellectual who upholds the cause of the proletariat in a system where the balance of power is skewed towards the moneyed class. Just the previous year, in 1943, Bimal Roy had made a documentary for New Theatres on the subject of the moment, the Bengal famine. Thus, Udayer Pathey came about when the rich-poor divide was in plain view, and inescapably so. The famine, the inflation of the war years, and the economic hardships that were the exclusive lot of the poor had irredeemably polarized the haves and the have-nots into two incompatible camps.

This social divide rings loud and clear in the opening scenes of Udayer Pathey. A luxurious chauffeur-driven car makes its way to a poorer part of Calcutta as the wealthy Gopa Banerjee (actress Binota Bose before she married the film’s story writer Jyotirmoy Roy to become Binota Roy) drops off her poor classmate Sumita (Rekha Mitra, later Mullick) at the latter’s home. Inside Sumita’s frugal home, her mother is at a loss about where to seat the rich visitor who has come to invite her daughter to a niece’s birthday party. 

But for all the lack of material wealth in the house, there seems to be an abundance of moral and intellectual wealth. Sumita’s brother, Anup (Anup Lekhak as he is known), quite literally, lives and breathes celebrated minds—the walls of his room are covered in his drawings of Tagore, Bernard Shaw, Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Bankim Chandra, Gandhi and Karl Marx. An amazed Gopa reads out from a Tagore poem that Anup has inscribed on the wall, which has the words “udayer pathey” in it—the inspiration for the film’s title. So, before we see Anup, we see the august company he keeps. 

Tagore's poem on the wall of Anup's room with the words "udayer pathey" 

We then see Anup (actor Radhamohan Bhattacharya, until then cast only in villain roles) return home to find Sumita stitching a frock as a birthday gift, and he cautions her against getting too close to her rich friend as he is convinced that her gift will not be appreciated in a society where price is all that matters. Sumita protests that not all rich people can be categorized so, but Anup is dead sure that all rich folks look down upon the poor. Sumita insists, though, that Gopa is different. And the unassuming and immensely likeable Gopa does seem to be very different from her snooty brethren.

The class divide is laid out in black-and-white at Gopa’s lavish house. The birthday party is on with music and dance, and Sumita sticks out like a sore thumb amidst the rich guests in their finery, and the liveried servers. (Actress Smriti Biwas—whose chubby face I clearly remember in Baap Re Baap, 1955 and Jagte Raho, 1956—dances to the remarkably beautiful Tagore song “Basante phool ganthlo,” very aesthetically picturized with a Nataraja statue, lit with lamps, in the background. I must say that “Basante phool ganthlo,” in this case visuals included, makes it to my category of deeply elevating songs.) The table overflows with expensive gifts, with people busy discussing who gifted what and how much it cost.

Smriti Biswas dances to "Basante phool ganthlo"

Rekha Mitra as Sumita

Sumita’s discomfort mounts by the minute and is not allayed when Gopa compels her to sing. Sumita’s soulful singing only receives a cold response from the gathering. Then, much to her (and Gopa’s horror), Sumita is accused of stealing from the gift table. A mortified Sumita faints, and Gopa discovers—in the folds of Sumita’s sari—the frock that her poor friend had brought along and was ashamed, perhaps, to leave on the table. The accuser, Gopa’s sister-in-law, is silenced, and Gopa accompanies her distraught friend home. There she meets Anup, who is angry to see his sister return crying and refuses to accept Gopa’s apology on behalf of her family. Anup rubs Gopa the wrong way and, after she leaves, Anup tells Sumita that her insult at Gopa’s house is an insult of all the poor by the rich.

Anup ekes out a livelihood through his writing and leads a hands-to-mouth existence—a fact that, however, does not ruffle him much. When his newspaper editor gives him the lead for a position as publicity officer at Modern Industries Ltd., Anup gives it a shot and meets the boss’s son there who is in charge, Shouren Banerjee (actor Devi Mukherjee), who is impressed by the candidate’s writing talents and extends a job offer. Anup accepts it for the sake of his family though he isn’t exactly thrilled that he has traded in the unfettered world of literary writing for the fettered world of publicity writing. 

Devi Mukherjee as Shouren

At this point, there is a scene, funny in an understated way, where Anup, his pockets newly full, wakes up his landlord (Tulsi Chakraborty, whose bulging eyes are etched deeply in the public imagination by the movie poster for Satyajit Ray’s Parash Pathar, 1958) in the middle of the night with the rent money. This is in return for the landlord’s demand, earlier on, of the overdue rent from Anup at an odd hour.

Shouren greedily eyes Anup’s writerly imagination and, when Shouren is asked to deliver a speech at the local university’s student union, he orders Anup to write the speech for him, which, he specifies, be peppered with grand words like bourgeois and democracy while also condemning the rich. The dialogue between Shouren and Anup brings out the contrast between the former’s smug, cocky thinking and the latter’s socialist thinking. The cigar-toting Shouren tells Anup that the rich are unshakably at the top of the social order and condemning them is just for the sake of winning popularity from the students. Anup retorts that the rich are at the top only because they possess the means to do so: they buy their way through. When Shouren condescendingly points out that it is the rich who create job opportunities for people like Anup, the latter notes that these jobs barely provide subsistence.

Indeed, as the socialist argument goes, in the capitalist system profits are flagrantly tilted in favor of those who own the means of production. The rich have the means, which the poor don’t, and that is what makes all the difference. The socialist framework of Udayer Pathey plays out in the context of the nationalist struggle against British rule. With economic and political subjugation thus inextricably intertwined, the film’s capitalist-worker divide is concurrent with the ruler-ruled—and West-East—divide of the times. So, in this scene it is not at all surprising that Shouren and Anup, in addition to mouthing ideologically opposing lines, are presented in Western, and Indian, clothes, respectively—and thus visibly positioned as opposites.

Shouren delivers the ghostwritten speech to much acclaim, and soon Anup arrives at his boss’s house to ghostwrite, in the comforts of a fabulous home library, another speech. Shouren shows off his original Jamini Roy painting—and this reminds the viewer of the earlier scene where Gopa sees Anup’s room covered in wall drawings and Sumita explains that her family cannot afford to buy paintings. Shouren says rather proudly that while he has a book collection spanning all subjects, he is too busy to read. Clearly, Shouren owns these status symbols not out of any genuine appreciation but because he has the brute means to buy it all, like a wholesaler does.

Anup sees Gopa at Shouren’s house (in keeping with the small world of filmi melodrama, she predictably turns out to be Shouren’s sister) and realizes that this is the house where Sumita was once humiliated. He resigns his job right away, actually glad to have the justification to quit working for a rich man. A persistent Shouren, who tries to write the speech himself and gives up, reaches Anup’s house to ask for forgiveness from Sumita and even promises that he will publish Anup’s novel. Anup returns, not so much to see the novel published, but because of his earlier promise of writing Shouren’s speech.

Gopa comes across Anup’s manuscript called “Purbachal” and is totally absorbed by its stark depiction of the lives of the working class. She has questions for Anup who is glad that the book has made her think outside of her class. When Gopa wonders if the homelessness and the poverty are really all that dire, Anup remarks that the very fact that she has to be told about such an obviously grim reality (and does not know it for herself) is disturbing, and indicative of the insensitivity of the rich. From here on, Gopa and Anup warm up to each other. Sure enough, the next time she goes to meet Anup, she wears a simple sari and happily drinks tea from a handleless cup; she also accompanies him to the huts of factory workers.

Meanwhile, Shouren acts foul: he publishes “Purbachal” under his own name. Anup is not shocked, but Gopa is, and she tells Anup that he must confront Shouren. Anup is surprised to see Gopa upset and in tears but he is too disgusted to pursue the matter. He happily realizes that Gopa is very different from her ilk and his regard for her goes up. Shouren’s friends all fawn over him and compliment him on his first-hand knowledge of the hardships of workers. Gopa boycotts the celebration at an expensive restaurant and instead she and Anup attend the workers’ union meet at a hut. Roy juxtaposes the party where food is overflowing and laughter is hollow, with the tension-filled hut where Gopa sees a poor child who has not eaten in two days.

The growing bond between Gopa and Anup is further cemented as they take a stroll together and, appropriate to the context of the moonlight, Gopa sings the soothing “Chander hashi badh bhengeche” by Tagore, with the fog rolling in ethereally. The magic of the scene is unmissable.

"Chander hashi badh bhengeche" and the fog

When Shouren hears of a workers’ protest in the offing and is told that Anup is behind it, he promptly bribes a worker to disrupt the event. When Gopa overhears her brother, she rushes to the meeting just in time to see a riot break out and Anup hit with a stone. An annoyed Shouren pulls his sister away from Anup, but the damage is done: the newspaper headlines scream of the love between factory owner’s daughter and labor leader. As matters get out of control at the workplace and at home, Shouren’s father, Rajendranath Banerjee (actor Bishwanath Bhaduri), enters the picture and tries to make peace with Anup—buy his loyalties, rather. Anup feels contempt for his boss’s manipulative tactics and refuses to oblige. Shouren then lies to Anup that Gopa is sorry about her friendship with a person beneath her class. Anup’s face falls as he hears this.

A disillusioned Anup sends his mother and sister away to the village, and is planning to leave Calcutta soon. As he tears asunder the newspaper with his and Gopa’s pictures, Gopa shows up and is surprised to see Anup suddenly cold and distant. She clears up his misunderstanding and tells Anup to take her along, wherever he goes. Gopa’s father, meanwhile, desperate not to lose his daughter, tries to fix her alliance with a wealthy friend’s son. He visits Anup and requests him to give up Gopa. Anup promises, but apparently Gopa’s mind is made and she puts on a dour expression when her brother arranges her meeting with the suitor.

Meanwhile, thinking that it is Gopa who has had their demands met, the workers go to her house to thank her and invite her to a felicitation function. Gopa replies that the credit should go to Anup, and the workers reply that he is going away and give her his letter addressed to her father. Gopa reads it and realizes that Anup is going away at her father’s request. She tells her father that she has to meet Anup and when Shouren tries to stop her from going, Rajendranath stops Shouren. The path clear, Gopa rushes to Anup’s house, where the landlord tells her that Anup has gone walking all the way to Asansol (to deal with yet another labor issue). Gopa gets into her car one last time and catches up with the wayfarer on the Grand Trunk Road, quite the solitary figure against an open landscape. Gopa tells Anup that she has left behind all riches to join him in the path of his choice, now hers as well. To which Anup replies that she has not left behind riches—rather, they lie ahead in this new path that she has chosen. As the two joyously walk away hand-in-hand towards the horizon, it is the dawn of a new beginning.

Walking together on the new path

Concluding reflections and a postcolonial reading: Udayer Pathey was, at various levels, an innovative film and one that set the standards for realism in Indian cinema. It was the first New Theatres film to touch upon the theme of socialism and, although the film’s decidedly black-and-white treatment of the rich-poor divide does seem rather simplistic (and predictable in a filmi way), the exposition of class differences was relevant at a time of rising national consciousness, when the country was busy setting aside differences of class, caste, gender, and religion to coalesce against foreign rule.

The battle that Anup wages against the class divide, and in which Gopa joins him, is a stepping-stone to the larger battle against colonialism. The new path that Anup and Gopa together take, in the end of the film, is a path that will create not just the wealth of classlessness but also the wealth of freedom and self-governance.

There is a sense in which the larger nationalist aspirations of the day merge into the film’s socialist aspirations: that Udayer Pathey opens to Jana Gana Mana (a historic first in an Indian film, although the scene is missing in the DVD from Angel—was it originally censored by the British perhaps?), not yet the national anthem in 1944, suggests that the film’s socialist dream is at once a dream of free India—free from the skewed power structures of capitalism and colonialism, both of which alienate and dispossess the worker/colonized. Shouren not just strips the workers of their rights to a dignified life but goes one step further to villainously rob Anup’s intellect and his creativity. This sort of an elemental plundering—or ravaging of the life force—is fundamental to colonialism, which dispossesses not only at the material level, but also, very significantly, at the inner level. Thus the image of Shouren in his western suit, throwing his weight around, unscrupulously appropriating what is not rightfully his, is indisputably in the colonialist mould. Gopa’s rising rebellion and her final desertion of Shouren, one of her own, to join hands with Anup—and the people— disturbs the status quo of the capitalism-colonialism combine and is symbolic of the weakening colonial grip over India. The path towards dawn at the end of the film presages the path towards a new, independent India.

On a minor, lighter, and perhaps irrelevant note: I couldn’t help but notice that people are constantly drinking tea in the film.

And, finally, a question: I have been very baffled about the missing Jana Gana Mana in the DVD from Angel. Film historian Firoze Rangoonwalla has clearly stated in a few places that Jana Gana Mana featured in the film as the opening song—and Radhamohan Bhattacharya, the film's lead actor, has recounted the same. So, then, did the British cut it in 1944, or did Angel cut it out unimaginatively in recent times? I emailed Angel and here is the response: “... please note that the original Video of Bengali Film 'Udayer Pathey' (B/W) was supplied to us by New Theatres itself. Therefore you are requested to kindly contact representative of New Theatres directly to clarify the matter.” So far, I have not been able to locate the contact information for New Theatres. Anyway, I find a very short excerpt of Jana Gana Mana in the film in this video here (starting at 1:21 and ending at 1:35)--which leaves me even more baffled. It does appear to be in the film, after all. Can anyone please throw some light on this mystery?
An update: I asked Mr. P.K.Nair, and he says that the National Film Archive of India's print of Udayer Pathey, which is copied from the original negative, doesn't have Jana Gana Mana either. The mystery continues ... 

Acknowledgements: I am grateful to: Forhad Hossain of Fremont, California, for patiently translating the film credits into English for me; and my cousin Vasanti Muthukumar of Bangalore, for reading out the names written in Bengali on the walls of Anup’s room from the screenshots that I sent her.

Disclaimer: My screenshots from the film are used for academic/discussion purposes only; they may be reproduced only if accompanied by a link to this blog.

The poetry and egalitarianism of Chandidas (1934)

A truncated version of this post with a missing punch line first appeared as "Messages in black and white" in 
The Hindu on July 18, 2012.

Calcutta's New Theatres’ 1934 Hindi version of its 1932 Bengali film Chandidas has a strong ballad-like feel to it as it musically lays before the audience the story of the legendary poet-saint from fifteenth-century Bengal. Reminiscent of the Romantic poets for his staunch belief in humanity, Chandidas was quite the recalcitrant figure of his times who opposed orthodoxy, rituals, and social stratification; favoring humanity as the only true religion, he saw the caste system as man-made, not God-made, and consequently invalid.

The Bengali Chandidas, directed by Debaki Bose (himself a Vaishnava follower), with Durgadas Banerjee in the lead role, was a runaway hit—indeed, it was New Theatres' first hit, which played for 64 weeks at the Chitra theatre in Calcutta. Two years later, the Hindi version directed by Nitin Bose (the cinematographer of the Bengali Chandidas) and starring K. L. Saigal—his first major success—was released. With his dreamy eyes, Saigal is a convincing Chandidas, a Brahmin fearlessly in love with the lower-caste washerwoman Rami (played by Umashashi, who made her Hindi film debut in 1933 with New Theatres’ Puran Bhagat after the Bengali Chandidas, before which she acted in silent films). Early in the film, Rami, while at her washing chores, sings “Premnagar men banaoongi ghar main,” when Chandidas comes by to the ghats and joins in, in a very memorable duet by the two actors. Song 1:



Music composer R. C. Boral, who is credited with introducing the playback system of recording in Indian cinema in Bhagyachakra / Dhoop chhaon (Bengali and Hindi, 1935), pioneered the use of background music in Chandidas to heighten the film’s lyrical movement. There is a sense in which the music is a character all by itself as it helps drive the narrative forward in this film filled with poetry from medieval Bengal. Indeed, Boral’s music and Chandidas’s poetry together create an aesthetically significant film that has, at its heart, the theme of liberation from the clutches of organized religion. Agha Hashr Kashmiri wrote the lyrics for the Hindi Chandidas. Listen here to the heart-tugging strains of “Tarpat beete din rain” in this very characteristically Saigal song. (Boral, who composed music for over 150 films, was, of course, one of Saigal's early mentors.) Song 2:



The film depicts a time when temples were closed to the lower castes. Chandidas, an apprentice to a temple priest, flouts the rules by insisting that the lord’s bounties are for everyone. His egalitarianism irks Gopinath (actor Nawab?), the local Brahmin merchant, who, in true filmi fashion, lusts after Rami. For all his condemnation of the lower castes, Gopinath has no scruples about hounding Rami, who is at a disadvantage because of her gender, caste, and economic status.

When Gopinath traps Rami in his house, the latter mockingly wonders about the irony of such an action by a supposedly incorruptible being such as a Brahmin. Rami’s outspokenness angers Gopinath, who sets fire to the house she shares with her brother Baiju—actor Pahari Sanyal, who sings quite a bit in the film. Listen to him here in "Chhayee basant aayee basant karke solah shringaar," my most favorite song in the film. (There is no audio from 0:20 to 0:26 with the print freezing; I apologize for that and for the poor print of all these clips.) Song 3:




Chandidas rescues Rami, and the priest rules that Chandidas will have to atone to be accepted back into the Brahmin fold. An aghast Rami goes to meet Chandidas, when Gopinath’s goons assault her. When Chandidas sees the battered Rami, he is disgusted enough with the rigidities of his brahminical roots to decide not to perform repentance, and, convinced that the human cry for justice is the greatest cry, he abjures forever his ties to the orthodox religious order. No longer bound by any societal shackles, at last he is free. Chandidas, Rami, Baiju and Baiju’s wife make a foursome as they walk away, singing “Prem ki ho jai jai,” vindicating the religion of love. Song 4:



A concluding thought: It would be a more somber ending for the lovers—the low-caste girl and the Brahmin boy—two years hence in Bombay Talkies’ hit film on the evils of caste in contemporary India—Achhut Kanya (1936). The lesson was the same, however: the caste system and untouchability were vices that ate into the Indian psyche, and could not be afforded when the nation needed to unite against the conqueror. According to Chandidas’s credits that commented on the lingering national problem of caste, the film is “based on the life problem of the poet Chandidas—a problem India has not been able to solve.”

A page from Indian film history: Dharti Ke Lal (1946)

A shorter version of this post first appeared as "Life, the way it was" in The Hindu on November 28, 2011. (A note: The accompanying photo in The Hindu is not from Dharti Ke Lal as the caption mistakenly says, but from Do Bigha Zameen to which the article refers.)

The "Bhookha hai Bengal" chorus song in Dharti ke Lal

Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’s directorial debut film Dharti Ke Lal (1946) begins and ends on an idyllic note, with a sailboat gently wafting across the water in rural Bengal. But what happens in between is the epic ugliness of hunger, poverty, and human suffering. Set against the backdrop of 1943’s Bengal famine in which nearly 5 million people perished, the film documents the anguish suffered by the family of a farmer and his two sons.

The film was a first in many respects. It was the multifaceted Abbas’s first film as a director. It was actor Balraj Sahni’s first major role, and a distinct precursor to his famous role of Shambhu in Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zameen (1953). Theatre couple Shombhu Mitra and Tripti Mitra appeared on the screen for the first time, as did veteran dancer-actress Zohra Segal. It was the first film presented under the aegis of the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) and starred, for the first time, a non-professional cast of “the people”—from organizations such as the Dhulia District Kisan Sabha and the Navjavan Mazdoor Party, among others.

The IPTA, formed in 1942, brought together intellectuals of the day who felt, in the then context of a growing nationalism, that theatre could be an effective medium for both social and artistic awakening among the people. The worlds of art and nationalism collided to produce plays that helped formulate the public ethic on important issues of the day. Socialist realism—rooted in songs, dance, and drama—was the mainstay of IPTA productions.

It was a shaky time: The war was on, and with it, a rising inflation and the consequent curse of starvation that was the lot of the impoverished. 1943-44 saw an exodus of hungry people from the villages to Calcutta and their disappointment at the apathy of the city dwellers. Many died, while others returned to the villages, forced to rely on themselves. This is broadly the context in which Abbas decided to make his first film that would highlight the people’s power in fighting against the plague of degradation and various institutionalized injustices. Individual empowerment would lead to collective empowerment, which, then, would create an enlightened public psyche that would keep at bay all the greedy zamindars, moneylenders, grain hoarders and other go-betweens of this world.

An advertisement in The Times of India dated 31 August 1946 invited audiences to Capitol Theatre to watch Dharti Ke Lal, “the story that had to be told in all its simple grandeur and stark realism!” The film merged its socialist realism with the new cinematic style of social realism that it helped set off—where the camera’s meaningful engagement with reality meant capturing life the way it was for the poor, dispossessed folks, in all its utter rawness, indeed in all its brutishness and nastiness as Thomas Hobbes would have said.

During his numerous visits to Calcutta around 1943-44, Abbas was appalled by the villagers’ starvation-induced deaths and other miseries that he saw playing out routinely on the streets. A successfully running IPTA play of the time, Bijon Bhattacharya’s Nabanna (The New Harvest), powerfully captured the grimness of the situation while offering hope for a new beginning in terms of rural self-sufficiency. This fuelled Abbas’s desire to tell the story and convey its positive message to the rest of India as well—through the medium of celluloid. After all, a Hindi film on a contemporary issue could have a strong pan-India appeal. Abbas was also influenced by three other works—Bhattacharya’s plays Jabanbandi and Antim Abhilasha, and Krishan Chander’s story Annadata—all of which strengthened his vision of Dharti Ke Lal. 

Except for a couple of outdoor shots that were filmed in Calcutta—wartime restrictions made shooting impossible in Calcutta—the film was mostly shot outdoors in Dhulia in modern Maharashtra that was the setting for rural Bengal, with city scenes shot in the studios in Bombay.

The film is set in the fictitious village of Aminpur in Bengal, which is home to Samuddev Pradhan, his wife, elder son Niranjan (played by Balraj Sahni), elder daughter-in-law Binodini ((played by Damayanti, Balraj’s Sahni’s wife) and younger son Ramoo (played by Anwar Mirza). Communal harmony is depicted in the form of Ramzaan, Pradhan’s close family friend and neighbour. After a bucolic opening celebrating the expanse of Bengal’s landscape, to the accompaniment of Pandit Ravi Shankar’s music (his second film after Neecha Nagar that also released in 1946), the film immediately cuts to the reality of people’s hardships, signified by plaintive notes on the sitar. Dark poverty and doleful sitar—there is a certain Pather Panchali air about that.

Ramoo is to be married and, to afford the wedding, Pradhan sells off his stock of grains to Kalijan Mahajan, a devious grain hoarder who is busy stockpiling rations to sell later at a steep price. Actor David plays the tout who prods Pradhan to sell his grains to Mahajan. As the days go by, Pradhan’s is just one family that is faced with severe scarcity of food. When Ramoo goes one day to buy grains from Mahajan, he is shocked to notice the latter’s overflowing granary. Indeed, the man from the kisan sabha or farmer’s association had rightly cautioned farmers from giving in to the grain hoarders. Ramoo belatedly realizes the family’s mistake in selling off the grains.  The astute Niranjan had foreseen this situation.

From this point on, Pradhan’s family has no choice but to buy grains from Mahajan on credit in the form of a promised next harvest or by pawning off jewellery, with the illiterate Ramoo leaving a thumb impression on the ledger each time, thus getting more and more entangled in debt. Meanwhile, Ramoo’s new wife Radhika (played by Tripti Mitra) wants to learn to read books and urges her husband to learn so that he can teach her. Ramoo goes to Dayal, the local schoolteacher, and starts lessons that he then imparts to his wife. Illiteracy, which is the reason for the impoverished getting mired deeper and deeper into degradation, is no less a bane than starvation, and the film addresses that issue, as an undercurrent though.

When Ramoo’s baby is born, there is not a morsel of food in the house. The family loses its cow Lakshmi (Ramoo’s pet) to the zamindar for not paying lagaan or taxes in two years. As Lakshmi is dragged away, Ramoo says, “Today the son is not able to save his own mother.” Later, when Ramoo, in a fit of helplessness, tells his family to sell the land (over which the zamindar, the tout, and Mahajan all have a vulturous eye), Pradhan and Niranjan are shocked.

Niranjan reminds his brother of the sacredness of the land and reminds him that “the land is our mother.” In keeping with the nationalist discourse, the land and the cow—that provide sustenance to the villagers—represent the life-giving mother figure, a primal inner force, now threatened by the collusion of corrupt outside forces. The recovery of this inner power—or the ability to protect the mother figure, which, in turn, means protecting oneself—is at the heart of Dharti Ke Lal’s socialist parable. With Ramoo affronted by a slap from Niranjan and breaking away from the family to try his luck at the city, the task of realizing the socialist dream will ultimately be up to Niranjan, who is aware that the scarcity of food is just an artificially created phenomenon by the larger power nexus that excludes the farmer.

With grain hoarders sending away their loot to Calcutta to be sold at astronomical prices, shops in Aminpur all shut down, resulting in sordid wretchedness all around. Dayal sees his family die before his eyes and almost loses his mind. As Aminpur turns into a “bhooton ki nagari” or a place of ghosts, the surviving few decide to brave it all the way to the city to beg for food. And then comes the famous exodus scene in the film, with many dropping dead en route, to dirge-like background music.

In Calcutta, the degradation of the hungry reaches a new low as they squat on the streets outside mansions, begging, scavenging dustbins, fighting with each other for scraps, grunting miserably—while the city around turns a blind eye. The rich dine luxuriously, while outside the glass door, the hungry look on: the disparity is Dickensian. When it is impossible to suffer further, respite comes in the form of death to many.

Moreover, the communal divide is fomented in the form of separate relief kitchens for Hindus and Muslims. As pots clang, Hindus shoo away Muslims, and vice-versa—this is in contrast to the religious unity of the village. The city’s inhumanness is personified in the rich Seth saheb (played by K. N. Singh, as villainous as ever), a grain-hoarding merchant who is permanently busy on the phone, making profitable deals.

Meanwhile, Ramoo who has been working as a rickshaw puller loses his job and, reminiscing about the good old days in the village, turns to alcohol for comfort. Pradhan’s family is languishing: Radhika prostitutes herself in exchange for milk for her child; her mother-in-law, weak and mad with hunger, steals the child’s milk; Pradhan is dying; and an unsuccessful Niranjan watches all this helplessly. 

When Niranjan turns to a kind, conscientious relief worker named Shambhu dada (possibly Shombhu Mitra) for moral strength, the latter says with conviction that the people’s awakening will definitely happen, and that Niranjan, as a tiller of the soil—tillers are, after all, known for their indefatigability—should not get dispirited. It is just that hunger has crushed people’s spirits. The voice of hunger needs to be heard by all of the country for help to arrive, and that should be the mission of the hour. The stage is set for the chorus song, “Bhookha hai Bengal” (Bengal is hungry), a hard-hitting plea for help addressed to the rest of India. On a map of undivided India stand the singers, and, in the background, silhouetted, are images of Bengal’s misery.

As the news spreads to the rest of India, Niranjan has finally some reason to hope for the better, and he tells his dying father about this encouraging turn of events. Pradhan is delusional and sees green fields, clouds, oxen, and a golden harvest. He tells his family and Ramzaan to return home and start life again, and dies. Niranjan resolves to make the golden harvest a reality. Shambhu, too, reminds Niranjan of the power of the people, of their power to help themselves, and Niranjan is convinced.

Everyone returns to Aminpur, except Radhika who despises herself so much they she can never go back home again. Radhika and Ramoo cross paths in a very unmemorable way: when he hears that there are only two items for sale in the market—“woman and food,” in the words of the same vile tout from Aminpur—Ramoo, with no job and no food, forces himself to be a pimp and tries to strike a deal with a woman who turns out to be Radhika. She informs him that his father is dead, and the rest have returned home with their child who has been entrusted to Binodini. Ramoo and Radhika are reunited in their suffering, and Ramoo is deeply pained that he came close to selling his wife.

Back in Aminpur, Niranjan tells his fellow farmers about the new concept of collective farming, where everyone will jointly plough the land, sow seeds, water the crops, and harvest food, and enjoy the fruits of hard work equally; then no land will go unused and no one hungry. The villagers are first taken aback by this radical idea, but then realize that there is no other option, and agree. The sense of togetherness among the people is echoed by schoolchildren who chime in unison: “Hindustan is our country. This field is yours. This field is mine. We will together make a big field, which will be neither yours nor mine, but everyone’s.” This grand lesson in the people’s empowerment pays off as the next harvest turns out to be a dream harvest. 

As the villagers make merry, and sing cheerful songs about the power of unity, Ramoo and Radhika—the wistful outsiders—look on. As the idyllic mood of Bengal’s landscape is reaffirmed, the film ends on a fable-like note with Radhika reminding her husband that as long as the country suffers from oppression and hunger, until then will the flame of their—the outcasts’—memory burn brightly in the hearts of the people of Aminpur.

One wonders at this bittersweet ending: why does Abbas not reintegrate the couple into the social fabric? They have, perhaps, strayed from their roots very far, but do they deserve to face permanent alienation? Perhaps it is Abbas’s way of equating the sanctity of womanhood with the sanctity of land: despite pressures, Niranjan could never be forced to part with his land; in contrast, Ramoo urges his brother to sell the land and, later, tries to sell his wife; Radhika goes one step ahead and sells herself. In the nationalist discourse of the time, women and land were routinely conflated, with each signifying the other, and representing what was sacrosanct. Selling one is the same as selling the other—and both are transgressions of the highest order that confer on the seller an outcast status.

That Dharti Ke Lal’s social realism made it an unusual Indian film for its time is illustrated in a rather interesting anecdote from Abbas’s autobiography. When Abbas visited the Cinematheque film library in Paris in 1955, the librarian told him that of all the Indian films they had received, there was one particular film (without titles) that seemed to stand out in that it was not the typical fighting-dancing movie; she was curious to know who had made it, and what its name was; when she described what she had seen to Abbas, it turned out to be Dharti Ke Lal.

(P.S. I am away from my home turf now. When I have access to my video equipment, I will post the "Bhookha hai Bengal" song and other excerpts that I have with me. Watch this space.)

Image credit: The Times of India, Mumbai, December 26, 2010

The enduring power of certain old Hindi film songs

This post first appeared in the PassionForCinema blog on July 15, 2009.



Of all the Raichand Boral (1903-1981) songs I have listened to—not that many, given how rare these songs are—my favorite has to be Binota Roy’s rendering of “Manwa kaahey phir tadpaayey” from Calcutta-based New Theatres’ Wapas (1943). The world of old Hindi films is full of so many beautiful songs that make it very difficult, if not plain impossible, to pick out favorites. Moreover, selecting favorites is purely an exercise in subjectivity and, indeed, self-expression; what appeals to me may not appeal to another.

To put it in a different way, I have noticed that certain songs have this unfailing power to make me feel completely in tune with myself, irrespective of when and where I listen to them, irrespective of my circumstances in life, irrespective of everything—and “Manwa kaahey phir tadpaayey,” with its charming Bangla intonation, simply has to be one of those songs. Here it is: Song 1:



I place these melodies in a category that I call “instant elevation.” My “instant elevation” songs are what I turn to when I feel weary of life, when I feel uninspired and lost, when I desperately need perspective, and even when I am a bit too smug for my own good. And I have never been let down. For this, I am extremely grateful—it is the one comforting thing in a world of here-today-gone-tomorrow. I hope I never lose this capacity to draw joy from this little well of mine.

The first time I heard this R. C. Boral composition, I was in standard X, feverishly mugging the “21 sets” preparation material (is it still around?) for the Maharashtra State Board exams. After every hour of mugging, I would reward myself with one “instant elevation” song, and then, inspired, return to mugging. Nearly two decades down the line, this literal interspersing of “instant elevation” songs with life’s many duties continues.

I also remember my habit (I still do it, much to the exasperation of my poor husband) of recording a single song repeatedly onto a whole side of an audiotape, sometimes even both sides, and listening to it non-stop. My one-song tapes would draw an irritated remark from my grandmother, “Why is the same song playing over and over again?”

Other culprits in the one-song tapes were, to name a few: Lata’s famous “Tum na jaaney kis jahaan mein kho gayey” from Sazaa (1951), composed by S. D. Burman; two Khemchand Prakash ditties from Ziddi (1948)—Lata’s lively “Chanda rey jaa rey jaa rey” and the delightful Lata-Kishore duet, “Yeh kaun aayaa”—the latter sounding very Pankaj Mullickesque; and M. S. Subbulakshmi’s “Main Haricharanan ki daasi” from her Hindi version of Meera (1947), composed by S.V. Venkatraman. (Incidentally, Binota Roy’s “Manwa kaahey phir tadpaayey” reminds me, in some subtle way, of M.S.’s songs in Meera—it could be the style of singing, the orchestration, the heartwrenching melody; I am unable to pinpoint it. It is just one of those things that strike me afresh every time I listen to it.)

I also have another name for my “instant elevation” songs: instant levelers. They elevate, and, by the same token, they level: during moments of hubris, when I revel in self-importance, nothing is more humbling than the majesty of my favorite music.

The years come and go, people come and go; even memories fade. As they say, nothing’s forever. But I find I am able to hold on to the beauty of a R. C. Boral song. On that note, I will leave you with (the quite literally not-to-be-forgotten) “Bhool na jaana aaj ki baaten” melody from Wapas, sung by actor-singer Ashit Baran, and Binota Roy. Here goes: Song 2:

Rantings of an old-movies buff

My very first post, which first appeared in the PassionForCinema blog on June 3, 2009.



I sit in my California apartment, happily surrounded by my old, tottering VHS tapes of Hindi films from the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Like King Midas with his gold, I proudly survey my precious collection, which is my only tangible link to a world that is far away in both space and in time. Having just embarked on the process of digitizing my film collection, I realize, though, that I will have to fortify myself. Case in point: When my tape of Calcutta New Theatres’ film Wapas (1943) jumps, my heart jumps too—heavily. The pain of seeing that vintage, irreplaceable treasure in that tattered condition is no less than the pain of seeing a dearest person wasting away. In my desperation, I find myself thinking, perhaps irrationally, that I would even trade in all my jewelry just to restore Wapas to its glory. I am just inconsolable. I even go on a hunger strike, convincing myself that if I rebel hard enough, Wapas will somehow regain its celluloid life and come back (“wapas”) to me.

When I explain this to people, many are puzzled. The typical response goes like this: “Old movies are easily available these days. Just check out this Indian DVD store…. They stock everything. It is not worth wasting your money on all this equipment converting VHS to DVDs when you can just buy them.”

To which, I enquire eagerly but doubtfully, fervently hoping for an affirmation, hoping against hope, “Oh really, do they have Buzdil (1951), or how about Khazanchi (1941)?” The response comes, somewhat indignantly even, blatantly bypassing my query—“Of course, they have old movies. There is Aradhana (1969), Seeta aur Geeta (1972), those Rajesh Khanna-Mumtaz starrers and those 70s movies.” These are, quite often, the same people who conflate the Burmans—S.D. and R.D. Indeed, much before Kishore Kumar teamed up with R.D., he sang for S.D. the “Dekho dekhojee” duet with Lata in Naujawan (1951), picturized on a dapper Premnath and a chirpy Nalini Jaywant.

As the years go by, of course, it is understandable that movies from the 1970s should rise in seniority—that is the law of chronology—just as the passage of time has earned me the suffix of Nivedita aunty. (I myself am a product of the mid-70s.) But with “old” becoming increasingly equated with the 60s and 70s, what epithet must one, then, use for movies of the Silent Era, the 30s, 40s, and 50s? For a die-hard vintage-movie buff who unequivocally (and rigidly) considers “old” to be pre-1960, it is disquieting that an Aradhana is more easily available than a Buzdil.

I remember once catching the tail end of the utterly haunting “Ada se jhoomtey huey,” a Shamshad Begum-Rafi duet from Sindbad the Sailor (1952), on a program called Raymond (later Centura) Sargam Smriti that used to air once a week on Bombay radio in the early 1990s. I still recollect being utterly mesmerized by this Chitragupt composition and kicking myself for not having been ready with my cassette recorder. For awhile, I even went into the Sindbad phase, constantly humming the tune to myself, in a bid to keep it alive within. Much later, I found the audio of that song, but I am still dying to lay hands on the film itself, which was directed by Nanabhai Bhatt and starred Naseem Bano and Ranjan. But at least I have managed to get a glimpse of Naseem and Ranjan, thanks to a kindred spirit who has uploaded the “Ada se jhoomtey huey” song onto Youtube that is fast becoming a haven for people like me in search of old treasures.

But the question remains: Why are our old films doomed to anonymity, to sheer atrophy in cinematic memory? Why should getting hold of a P.C. Barua film of 1936 (I refer to New Theatres’ Manzil that was co-written by the legendary Saratchandra Chatterjee, with music by two stalwarts, R.C. Boral and Pankaj Mullick) be so difficult, if not downright impossible? Surely the old classics deserve to be better remembered, better documented, and better exhibited.