1959

BIMAL ROY AND SUJATA

Sujata
(a) Aim
(b) Background
(c) Subodh Ghosh (1909-1980)
(d) Synopsis
(e) Analysis
(f) The Women in Sujata
(g) Gandhi, Buddha and Sujata
(h) The progressive upper caste and its attitude to Dowry
(i) Blood transfusion
(j) Nutan in and as Sujata
Conclusion
WORD-COUNT: 13,006 (Completed)
Bimal Roy (1909-1966)
Bimal Chandra Roy was born on July 12, 1909 in Suapur village of East Bengal,
now in Bangladesh. The fourth of seven brothers, Bimal Roy belonged to a family of
aristocratic zamindars. The affluence of the family in those days placed leisure above
hard work. Roy began his education at home till he went to Dacca, coming home to
spend in holidays in the village. These were pleasant boat journeys across rivers,
offering an original audiovisual landscape that found their reflection in many of his
films.i
Since he was a boy, Roy was an avid photographer. He took up science as his
stream after high school. A little-known fact about him is that Bimal Roy did female
roles in plays like Misar Kumari. However, his fathers demise was followed by
economic disruption, which made everyone look out for a means of living. By the end
of 1930, all the seven brothers had migrated to Calcutta. A business in transport set
back the family into better days while some of the brothers joined British firms. But
Roys interest in photography on the one hand and cinema on the other, would often
take him on long walks towards the film studios at Tollygunje. His pursuit for a career
in films finally landed him a job with New Theatres first as an apprentice and then as
assistant cameraman. From assisting Nitin Bose as cameraman, Bimal Roy graduated
to a full-fledged cameraman for P.C. Barua for the Hindi version of Devdas.
After more than three decades in films, Bimal Roy, a chain smoker, passed
away in his Bandra bungalow in January 1966 of lung cancer. His banner, Bimal Roy
Productions, was already teetering under a burden of heavy debts incurred during his
illness and following the fire at Mohan Studios that left almost everything in cinders,
limped for a while and then stopped. Do Dooni Char was completed and released
after his death but flopped at the box office.
None of his four children have taken up the fathers vocation. One daughter,
Jashodhara, is an occasional costume designer for films and television. The eldest
daughter Rinki, once married to Basu Bhattacharya, did an occasional video
documentary, toyed with journalism, edited a book on her father and then founded
the Bimal Roy Memorial Trust to create an archive dedicated to her fathers works.

2
Joy, his only son, worked under Shyam Benegal for a while and then turned his
attention to television and advertising. In short, none of them have ever shown even
a hint of the brilliance their father left behind.
Manobina Roy, his wife, sacrificed what could have been a brilliant career in
Black-and-White still photography to commit herself to her family. She also wrote a
couple of books in Bengali and wrote in English for periodicals for a brief while. She
was a solid pillar of support to Roy right through his ups and downs. After his demise,
she tried her best to keep the children away from legal wrangling, and to keep the
Bimal Roy banner flying, but it was all in vain. The family is now split up and
entangled in legal hassles, while money from his films keeps flowing in from the
satellite channels that continue to telecast the films of Bimal Roy. His rented
bungalow in Bandra has now been converted into a multi-storeyed residential
complex, destroying forever, the dream of his widow of turning it into an archival
museum dedicated to Bimal Roy.
An Appraisal as Director
From Udayer Pathey (1936) to Benazeer (1965), the Bimal Roy era in Indian
cinema spans three decades of dedicated filmmaking. Before wielding the
megaphone, Bimal Roy was cinematographer for P.V. Raos Nalla Thangal (Tamil),
Baruas Devdas, (Bengali, Hindi and Tamil, Manzil, Mukti and Bari Didi. He was a
strong and silent human being with speech conspicuous by its absence. He spoke
very little, about himself, about his family and even about his films. He shunned
superlatives and though be was very much a part of the film industry, he kept himself
aloof from parties, or a loud and garish lifestyle that is the wont of film personalities
everywhere. But his name was mandatory in every list of film delegations that went
abroad. He was almost coerced into all sorts of associations and committees, even as
he kept himself distanced from the political wrangling that formed an inevitable part
of all these actions. He won awards left, right and centre, but after some time, they
did not seem to matter to him one way or another. Members of his technical crew and
his acting cast won awards too, and during his time, were considered to be among
the best in the industry.
Hrishikesh Mukherjee, editor for most of his films, who won a string of awards
for his editing of Bimal Roy films, later turned into an independent filmmaker in his
own right. At least two men, Basu Bhattacharya and Gulzar, who began their careers
assisting him, became big names later. He gave directorial breaks to his favourite
comedian Asit Sen and an old friend Arabindo Sen. Vyjayantimala, Dilip Kumar,
Kamini Kaushal, Nutan and Meena Kumari are some actors who bagged top awards
for their work in his films. Salil Choudhury, introduced as music director by Roy in Do
Bigha Zamin, became one of the best composers in the industry, treading a
completely new path in film and other music with what is known today as fusion. For
a song in Do Bigha Zamin, Choudhury incorporated the theme music of the Russian
Red March and the song has been immortalised.
From Udayer Pathey to Bandini, there are innumerable instances of screen
performances and technical achievements never known to have been attained
earlier. Though his background is traced back to the days when screen acting was
directly influenced by the melodramatic exaggeration that marked theatrical
performances, Bimal Roy was noted for his marked restraint. He evolved a subtle,
normal mode, contributing to the richness of the tapestry of the realistic theme of his
films. The visual brilliance of the filmmaker, apparent in his pre-directorial works like
Chambe Di Kali in Punjabi and Nalla Thangal in Tamil, was mature, confident and
certain. He is said to have had an almost uncanny sixth sense about the positioning
of the camera. Even when an independent cameraman worked for him, he would

3
come to the set, look through the lens, and ask for the camera to be shifted at least
nine or ten times. Kamal Bose and Dilip Dutta Gupta were his regular
cinematographers.
Lighting, an extremely important element in his works, acquired greater
vibrancy in Parakh, Sujata and Bandini. Whenever the narration grew nostalgic or
throbbed with inner crisis, whether in anguish or in ecstasy, the mood was captured
in delicate chiaroscuro patterns of black, grey and dove white. His language was
painted in every possible shade of grey, white and black. One never thought of colour
even in a pastoral romance like Madhumati; nor did not miss it. The camera was his
brush and his unfailing grip over it made him manoeuvre it with gentle strokes,
sweeping into his canvas the rich poetry and the powers of human beauty, the
intensity and the variety of human emotions. His narrative was unhurried, lingering,
yet never tended to drag like slow-paced films usually do. The editing was marked by
his characteristic spontaneity while his dialogues were always delivered in low-key
and soft tones. Loudness, in other words, was conspicuous by its absence. Pran, who
played villain in Biraj Bahu and Madhumati, made more eloquent use of body
language and facial expression than voice for both films. Bimal Roy perhaps, is the
only filmmaker of the post-Barua-Debaki Bose era who towered over the Indian
cinema scenario with such consistent command over the medium. His work is a fine
blend of the sophistication of P.C. Barua, the emotional lyricism of Debaki Bose and
the skilled craftsmanship of Nitin Bose.
Bimal Roys first directorial assignment under the NT banner came in the form
of a 1000-feet government sponsored documentary on the Bengal famine of 1943.
When he went on location to shoot the film, the masses turned their anger towards
him, not allowing him to shoot. But managed to win them over and got some good
footage for the film. B.N. Sircar himself chose Udayer Pathey, an unpublished story by
Jyotirmoy Roy, for Roys debut feature film. The film turned out to be a big
commercial hit and the story came out in book form afterwards. It ran continuously
for one full year at Calcuttas Chitra Cinema. The story later turned into a play and
the entire dialogue was transferred onto eight discs that sold very well, creating a
new way of marketing dialogue. Udayer Pathey introduced a new era of post-WW2
romantic-realist melodrama that was to pioneer the integration of the Bengal School
style with that of Vittorio De Sica.
Arabinda Mukherjee, a noted director in his own right, has now retired from
active filmmaking, said that his entire career in films was triggered off after he saw
Bimal Roys Udayer Pathey. I assisted him for Anjangarh. In those days, we were put
through a hard, grilling process. I was already employed as editing assistant. Here, I
had to train for three months in the laboratory, three months on editing and three
months in sound. In the meantime, I had to learn to work under Bimal Roy. He asked
me to rewrite scene number 176 from the script of the film he was then making. I
was told that he had asked many people to write out the same scene but remained
dissatisfied with the results. So, I approached playwright Bidhayak Bhattacharjee and
he helped me out by suggesting the drama element needed for the scene. I was
on.ii
Udayer Pathey soon had a Hindi version called Humrahi, completely re-shot on
new sets with the same artistes. However, Humrahi did not repeat the success of the
Bengali original. His leanings towards the poor and the downtrodden perhaps came
from his basic humanism rather than from purely Leftist leanings as some critics
opined. His leftist leanings of any, stemmed from conviction and not from active
association because he never held any party ticket. Some of his political ideology is
reflected in the way Udayer Patheys hero Anoops room. His walls were filled with

4
portraits of national leaders and great thinkers as different as Karl Marx and Tagore. A
few Tagore songs in the film became big hits. There was a fiery zeal in his earlier
films, which was replaced with a mellow social concern in his later films. One of his
most notable qualities was the total restraint he practiced in keeping away from any
kind of political propaganda or pamphleteering in any of his films.
His next film in Calcutta for New Theatres was Anjangarh in Bengali and Hindi
based on Fossil, a short story by Subodh Ghosh. This was followed by Pehla Admi in
Hindi and Mantra Mughda in Bengali, based on a noted literary piece of work by
Bonophool, neither of which could live up to the expectations raised in his first
directorial film, Udayer Pathey. He also wrote Manoj Bhattacharyas Tathapi in 1950.
In the same year, he migrated to Bombay. He was invited by Bombay Talkies to make
Maa, and had come to Bombay initially only for six months. He began to receive
other offers such as Parineeta, based on a sweet love story by Sarat Chandra and
produced by Ashok Kumar with beautiful music that in time turned into a signature
for every Bimal Roy film. I consider Parineeta to be the most beautiful and dignified
celluloid metamorphosis of an original Sarat Chandra classic that has no parallel in
cinema till this day, says journalist Shankarlal Bhattacharya. When he firmly
established himself in Bombay, Roy decided to found his own production banner,
under the name and style of Bimal Roy Productions, using as his emblem, the Rajabai
Tower of Bombay University, far distanced from the more obvious and visually
opulent emblems used by Raj Kapoor, Mehboob, New Theatres or Prabhat .
Do Bigha Zamin was the turning point for Bimal Roy as filmmaker par
excellence. The film continues to remain the most significant film that bears the
distinct stamp of the Italian neo-realism school from Bimal Roys films. Do Bigha
Zamin (Two Acres of Land) was released in 1953. It is a realist drama based on a
story by Salil Choudhury who loosely adapted this from a Tagore long poem of the
same name. The story is about a small landowner Sambhu (Balraj Sahni) which opens
with a song celebrating the rains that put an end to two seasons of draught. The song
goes hariyala saawan dhol bajata aaya. Sambhu and his son Kanhaiya (Ratan
Kumar) have to go and work in Calcutta to repay their debt to the merciless local
zamindar (Sapru) in order to retain their land. In Calcutta, Sambhu becomes a
rickshaw-puller, facing numerous hardships that lead to his near-fatal accident, the
death of his wife (Nirupa Roy) and the loss of his land to speculators who build a
factory on it.
Though promoted as the Indian epitome of Italian neo-realism on celluloid, in
retrospect, there is more of the melodrama than neo-realism throughout the film. The
script and the humanist acting styles, including a hard but kind landlady in the
Calcutta slum and the happy-go-lucky shoeshine boy (Jagdeep) who takes Kanhaiya
under his wing while humming Raj Kapoors awara hoon number all find their
ancestry in Nitin Boses ruralist socials at New Theatres such as Desher Maati in
1938, enhanced by IPTA overtones in Salil Choudhurys music. The films neo-realist
reputation is almost solely based on Balraj Sahnis extra-ordinary performance in his
best-known film role. Also remarkable is Hrishikesh Mukherjees editing, virtually
eliminating dissolves in favour of unusually hard cuts from the falling wheel of the
films famous rickshaw race sequence to Kanhaiya coming to the bedside of his
injured father. Mukherjee claims that such a cut from day to night was unprecedented
in Indian cinema. Sahni however, is reported to have given a similar performance
along neo-realist lines in K.A. Abbass first film Dharti Ke Lal (1946).
He held back the release of the completed Parineeta in favour of Do Bigha
Zamin, which is said to have offended producer Ashok Kumar at the time. He set up
his own sound stage and an unpretentious office at Mohan Studios in Bombays

5
Andheri and went on to direct Baap Beti, Naukri and Biraj Bahu under his own banner.
The films that followed are Devdas, Madhumati, Sujata, Parakh, Yahudi, Bandini and
Prem Patra. Eight more films came out of Bimal Roy Productions of which six were
feature films Amanat which Arabindo Sen was chosen to direct, Apradhi Kaun, a
thriller, Pariwar, a family comedy, Usne Kaha Tha based on a Premchand short story,
Kabuliwalla based on a Tagore short story, and Benazeer, starring Meena Kumari. The
other two were documentaries Gotama the Buddha and Swami Vivekanand, a
biographical documentary he produced for Films Division.
Bimal-das work is poetry in motion, says music director Tushar Bhatia,
classifying the music in Bimal Roys films into four categories (a) as a
cinematographer in New Theatres Studio, Calcutta, (b) as director in New Theatres
Studio, Calcutta, (c) as an independent producer-director in Mumbai with Bimal Roy
Productions and (d) as freelance director with production banners other than his own.
Bimal-das aesthetic sensibilities were shaped and honed in New Theatres which
spilled over to the films he made in Mumbai, says Bhatia, throwing light on
background sound effects and the positioning and choreography of song situations in
his early films. P.C.Baruas Mukti was cinematographed by Bimal Roy in 1937. The
film was path breaking in becoming the first ever film in history to use Tagore songs
in cinema. A song from the film, diner sheshe, ghoomer deshe sung by Pankaj
Mullick was the first Tagore song with the music composed by Mullick after obtaining
clearance from Tagore himself. The effects could be seen all over again in Salil
Choudhurys music for Bimal Roys Madhumati, informs Bhatia.iii
Gulzar, when asked how his encounter with Bimal Roy began, says, During
the making of Bandini in the early Sixties, S.D.Burman who was composing the
music for the film and Shailendra, who was writing the lyrics, had a tiff. And there
was this tune waiting to be written into. Debu Sen, who was kind of assistant on the
sets, took me to Bimal-da who introduced me to S.D. Since Urdu was my main
language, S.D. had some reservations about whether I would be able to infuse my
son with the right Vaishnav spirit that was called for. I took up the gauntlet and my
first song for Hindi cinema was born: mora gora ang laye le, mohe shyam ang daye
de which became a big hit. Sadly for me though, when the song was over,
Shailendra and S.D. had patched up their problems and I was left in the lurch.
Bimal-da did not like this at all but S.D. was adamant about not taking me on for the
rest of the songs. But during this film, I met one of the closest friends in my life S.D.'s son R.D. who would wander about the sets in shorts and sneak out for a fag
now and then. Bimal-da perhaps felt a bit sorry for me and offered me the
assistantship for his next Hindi film Kabuliwallah, based on a Tagore story."iv
Women in Bimal Roys films
The women in Bimal Roy's films had an identity of their own and their stature
was unimpeachable. They were emotionally 'independent' in the sense that they
were not mere foils to the men or to the other characters in the film. They created a
niche for themselves in the mind of the audience. Their images continue to make
their presence felt long after the film is over. Do Bigha Zamin (1953) portrays Nirupa
Roy as a peasant wife. She is left behind to cope with her small family of a small son
and a sick father-in-law when he leaves for the city. She is realistic and credible in her
naivete and her earthiness. She takes her husband's letters to an educated lady
(Meena Kumari in a guest role) to be read out to her. When the woman reads these
letters out to her, Nirupa smiles like a coy bride. She keeps count of the days her
husband has been away by making chalk marks on the wall, displaying the natural
anxiety of an unlettered peasant wife. In the city, she demonstrates her gullibility to
be conned into an attempted rape by Tiwari. While escaping from his clutches, she is
run over by a car and lands in hospital. Though totally dependent on her husband,

6
she has a mind of her own. The story was penned by Salil Choudhury who adapted it
from a famous poem of the same name composed by Tagore. One of the songs in the
film, a peasant song, mausam beeta jaaye was inspired by the Red March score from
Communist Party of the USSR. The film is said to have been strongly inspired by the
Italian Neo-Realist school of films and remains a textbook film for new filmmakers
inclined towards this style.
Madhumati, an all-out commercial film on reincarnation, is perhaps, the
biggest box office hit among all his films. This film forms one of the most unique
triumvirates of cinema talents in the history of Indian cinema. The script was penned
by Ritwik Ghatak, the beautiful musical compositions were by Salil Choudhury, and
the film was produced and directed by Bimal Roy himself. Though the film had too
many commercial ingredients when compared with other Roy films, Madhumati still
evokes an aura of romance that has disappeared from the Indian mainstream many
years ago. Vyjayantimala in the title role, dances away against the backdrop of the
hilly landscape, her ethereal beauty immortalised in Black-and-White, her
performance first, as the love-struck hilly maiden, and then, as the ghost who comes
back to invite her lover to a union beyond death, matches the delicate nuances of
Dilip Kumar as her city-bred lover. In her double role as the city girl who is asked to
play Madhumati's ghost, Vyjayantimala changes her body language, her style of
emoting and delivering her lines, and above all, her interaction with the hero who is
just an acquaintance asking her to help. The music and songs of the film have been
immortalised through time.
Devdas has two principal woman characters. The Devdas of the title has
become synonymous with any pining, alcoholic lover in India through Sarat Chandra
Chattopadhyay's popular novel of the same name. The film has had several earlier
versions, the most famous being the Pramathesh Barua directed double version in
Bengali (with Barua himself playing the title role) and Hindi (with K.L.Saigal playing
Devdas.) Interestingly, these New Theatres' productions were cinematographed by a
young Bimal Roy himself. The two woman characters in the film and the novel,
Parvati (Suchitra Sen) and Chandramukhi (Vyjayantimala) are dynamic. They grow
over the cinematographic narrative of the film.
Parvati, Devdas's childhood sweetheart who he cannot marry and for whose
love he meets with a tragic death, has two dimensions to her growth. As a child and a
teenager, she is her childish, innocent self, a sweet girl prancing about in the woods
with the boy she falls in love with. When she gets married to a much older man, a
zamindar who has grownup children from a previous marriage, Parvati has
compromised with her new responsibility as wife-and-mother within a new family.
Devdas for her is part of a sweet memory from her past, which she begins to relive
with shock, as she discovers the ruined figure of a dying Devdas on her doorstep in
the climax. The latter part of Parvati's character, the mature, mellow responsible and
understanding wife, is stronger and more memorable than the former one. Parvati
throws caution to the winds and breaks down completely the minute she hears that
the dead man at her door is none other than her own Devdas.
Chandramukhi, the singing girl who Devdas begins to visit only to have his
drinking bouts in peace and quiet, falls in love with him and is so influenced by his
aloofness and his attitude towards her that she gives up her profession for good.
Knowing fully well that her love is totally one-sided, Chandramukhi slowly and surely
metamorphoses from a woman of easy virtue to a woman of quiet dignity, presented
with more richness than it was in the novel. Vyjayantimala was nominated for the
Best Supporting Actress of the Year by Filmfare for her performance in the film. But

7
she turned down the award on grounds that it was not a 'supporting' role but the
female lead.
All said and done however, the actress who ideally portrayed the characters
Roy conceived for her in two films was Nutan, who performed the role of the
untouchable girl in and as Sujata, and then, after some years, in Bandini. Bimal Roy's
two much acclaimed films with Nutan, Sujata and Bandini, saw him returning to
realistic imperatives. Sujata, dealing with caste prejudice is more human than most
films made on this subject while Bandini is considered to be by many as his finest
work. The film tells the story of a woman prisoner charged with murder. The story,
told in flashback from the woman's point of view, is narrated in such a manner as if
for most of the time, Kalyani, this girl, is present within the cinematographic narrative
either directly or within the sound ambience of the film, which is also used at times
as a strategy to move back into her past. Bimal Roy used imagery and sound
beautifully to convey the changing and sometimes volatile moods of Nutan. As she is
seated in the corner of her gray, grim cell facing the prison's high wall, she can hear
the hoofs of the horse pulling the carriage taking away her lover, or that masterful
scene in which Nutan murders her lover's wife with the hammering of a welder in the
background heightening the drama!
Bandini was based on a novel, called Tamasi penned by Jarasandha, the only
author in Bengal to date to have documented the lives of prisoners through fiction.
Nutan did the role of Kalyani, a prisoner sentenced for a life term for having poisoned
her lover's wife. The film follows a telescopic structure, moving backwards and
forwards into and through time, tracing the strange emotional bonds Kalyani
develops with the two men in her life, one, as a young maiden smitten by a
revolutionary Vikas, (Ashok Kumar) and the other as the silent, reserved prisoner who
the young prison doctor Devtosh (Dharmendra) falls in love with and decides to
rescue from a life in prison.
The girl's uncompromising stance reaches a climax when, instead of marrying
the doctor, she runs to nurse her dying lover in his last days. Not once does Roy try
to rationalise his heroine's act of murder. Yet, in the ultimate analysis, Kalyani is
discovered to have been a tragic victim of sad circumstances. Bandini, in the opinion
of this writer, is Bimal Roy's most complete film in the sense that it has eloquently
depicted the 'complete' woman with an appeal that transcends the personal to enter
the political, a significance that is more universal than individual. Had Bimal Roy not
passed away of lung cancer as early as he did (1966), women on the Indian screen
would have probably reached a higher degree of maturity, strength and realism than
they have today.

Sujata
Aim: The aim of this paper is to elucidate the theory of the directors
use of a womans silence and submission as voice. Sujatas silence is partly
circumstantial, partly natural and partly self-imposed. By nature she is a quiet woman
though her childhood shows her as cranky and demanding of her mother. Her
positioning within the family hierarchy placed as she is, is a position next to her older
sister Rama, and is circumstantial. When she realises that something is wrong for her
mother to repeatedly introduce her with the words, she is like my daughter, she
creates a shell of self-imposed silence. This silence extends to her soft body
language, her speech and manners, her simple way of dressing, and in her
interaction with parents, sister, Adhir and widowed aunt. The silence turns into an
assertive and strong voice when she saves her adoptive mothers life with her
blood, erasing in one long sweep, all questions of birth, blood ties, adoption with one
single emotion love expressed quietly, pervasively and even stubbornly, through

8
silence and through the greatest gift a daughter can make to her adoptive mother
her blood.
Background
Till this day, Sujata enjoys the status of a classic both at national and
international retrospectives of Bimal Roys films and of Indian films. Its mechanisms
of pleasure, blend of realism and idealism, and the humanitarian vision that it
embodies denote a powerful, albeit fading current in the symbolic universe of the
1950s.v In and through Sujata, many of the oppositions that sustain between poverty
and wealth, renunciation and worldliness, dharma and adharma, desire and law are
worked out in terms of the family-as-nation/nation-as-family ideal.
The only notable film based on the delicate theme of untouchability in Hindi
before Sujata is Achhut Kanya (1936) which turned out to be a big box office hit with
music by Saraswati Devi that are hummable to this day. Produced under the Bombay
Talkies banner, Achhut Kanya was directed by Franz Osten with the story by Niranjan
Pal, dialogues by J.S. Casshyap, photography by Josef Wirsching, art direction by Karl
Von Spreti and Sound by Savak Vacha. Devika Rani and Ashok Kumar portrayed the
two leads in the film. The storyline goes as follows: Caste prejudice and class barriers
prevent marriage between Kasturi, a Harijan girl, and Pratap, a Brahmin youth both
childhood friends and in love. Soon, Kasturi is forced into a loveless alliance with one
of her own caste. When a chance encounter at the village fair brings the two lovers
together, Kasturis husband, inflamed by jealousy and suspicion, attacks Pratap at
the railway level crossing, where he is employed as gatekeeper. While the two men
are engaged in a fierce fight unmindful of a fast approaching train, Kasturi, in an
attempt to save them, is run over and dies. Before this, only two other films had
touched upon the caste problem is any significant way Nitin Boses Chandidas
(1934) and V. Shantarams Dharmatma (1935.)
Interestingly, Bimal Roy always relied on literature for the source of his films.
All his films are based on literature, classic and contemporary. Though for a major
slice of his works, he relied on original literature in Bengali, he also made one film,
Usne Kaha Tha, based on a story by Munshi Premchand while one, Madhumati, was
directly written as a story and screenplay by Ritwik Ghatak. Roy also made
Kabuliwalla based on a short story by Rabindranath Tagore. Bandini was a straight
adaptation of Jarasandhas Bengali novel Tamasi. Biraj Bahu, Devdas and Parineeta
were all based on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyays novels. Before his death, he had
bought the rights of Tarasankar Bandopadhyays Mahasweta, again centred around a
young girl who rises above all obstacles in life to find happiness on he own terms.
However, his choice of stories from original literary works was not based
solely on the merits of the story but also on its social relevance. Thus, from Udayer
Pathey onwards, except a few forays into the historical such as Yahudi or exploring
the thriller genre like Apradhi Kaun, a family comedy like Parivar, Bimal Roys films
somehow brought forth, sometimes unwittingly, sometimes consciously, some social
relevance. Naukri, Do Bigha Zamin, Parineeta, Devdas, Biraj Bahu, Sujata, Parakh and
Bandini had some message that carries a strong social significance that is timeless in
the Indian context. However, they also sprung from his fondness for undiluted,
refreshing and simple love stories narrated in a straightforward manner. Sujata is a
fine blend of contemporary literature, social message, love and humanism at his
glorious best, as revealed through the characters of Sujatas adoptive father Upendra
Choudhury, and Adhir, the young man who falls in love with her. To Bimal Roy any
form of injustice was unacceptable be it social, religious or economic. Sujata looking
at the plight of untouchability remains one of the most humanistic films made on the
subject. Sujata saw Bimal Roy returning to more realistic imperatives after the

9
comparatively lightweight Madhumati and Yahudi, both of which incidentally were big
successes at the box-office.
Two significant films released in the same year, 1959, need mention here to
place Sujata in perspective. One of them is Guru Dutts Kagaz Ke Phool and the other
is B.R. Chopras Dhool Ka Phool. Kagaz Ke Phool is placed within the setting of a film
industry, a point-of-view narration by a noted director who has lost his gloss, his fame
and his glory. He enters the studio floor he shot his classic films in, to journey into the
past. Said to be filled with autobiographical anecdotes and suggestions, the film
journeys through his broken marriage and his affair with one of the leading ladies he
gave a break to, now a famous star, to his present state of decay and death. There
are two women characters in the film. One of them remains out of the visual frame,
but nevertheless forms a strong presence for a part of the film. It is the directors
wife. The other is the actress, enacted beautifully by Waheeda Rehman who is said to
have had an intense emotional relationship with Guru Dutt in real life. This real-life
relationship is repeatedly referred to through suggestion right through the film. This
intercutting of celluloid with real life in one of the best self-reflexive films in Indian
cinema, makes a strong yet subtle statement about women who find themselves
trapped, marginalised, exploited and misused within the glitz and the chutzpah of the
plastic world of cinema whether she happens to be the wife of a filmmaker, or the
other woman in his life.
Dhool Ka Phool is the first post-Independent social comment on unwed
motherhood in mainstream Indian cinema. The focus of the film however, soon shifts
from the tragedy of the woman to the tragedy of the illegitimate child, the flower
born of dirt and dust as the title of the film suggests. The father refuses to
acknowledge the child as his own, the mother is married off too, and the child is left
alone to be brought up by a Muslim. The film was reduced to melodrama mainly due
to the director getting lost within a host of arguments he initiated but failed to carry
through. Within this scenario, it would be interesting to discover what position Sujata
occupies, within this time sequence. Other films released before and after Sujata are
Lajwanti (1958), Sone ki Chidiya (1958), Deep Jele Jai (Bengali 1959), Anuradha
(1960), Baishey Sravan (1960) and Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960).
Subodh Ghosh (1909-1980)
The vitality, variety and richness that mark Bengali literature is clear when we
find that even the presence of a Tagore did not stultify the growth of talent in others.
Thus one had in the first half of the twentieth century outstanding novelists like Mir
Musharraf Hussein (also a playwright), Saratchandra Chattopadhyay, Bibhutibhushan
Bandyopadhyay. Balaichand Mukhopadhyay, Manik Bandyopadhyay and poets like
Satyendranath Datta, Mohitlal Majumdar, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Premendra Mitra,
Sudhindranath Datta, Jibanananda Das, Bishnu Dey and Buddhadev Basu. The more
prominent novelists in West Bengal in the post-Sarat Chandra and Bibhutibhushan
era are - Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay, Narayan Gangopadhyay, Subodh Ghosh,
Ramapada Chaudhury, Bimal Kar, Samaresh Basu and Shyamal Gangopadhyay.
These litterateurs form a segment whose works are known to have been cinemafriendly. Among them, the more popular ones within cinema are Tarasankar
Bandopadhyay and Subodh Ghosh. Many of their works have been made into films
and they have survived the onslaught of time and language to a large extent.
Tarashankars works within Hindi films include Kabi, directed in Hindi by Debaki
Kumar Bose with Bharat Bhushan in the title role, loved by Geeta Bali and Nalini
Jaywant in the two female roles. Devar, starring Dharmendra, Deven Verma and
Sharmila Tagore is also based on a Tarasankar novel.

10
Ghosh was born in 1909, Bikrampur, Dhaka, now in Bangladesh, and educated
at St. Columbia's College, Hazaribagh. His early career was varied. 'Starting as a
schoolmaster', he wrote,' I had the following occupations: Performance on the
horizontal bar of a circus; district board health inspector on the Haj Pilgrimage
Service; sanitary inspector; bus conductor on the Ranchi-Gaya Motor Bus Service;
confectioner; hotel-keeper; mica-mining prospector; vaccinator; poultry farmer;
butter merchant; sannyasi, gypsy, union volunteer, political worker. In 1941, Subodh
Ghose took to writing; his first few stories won him immediate recognition. While he
worked, rising to a senior level, on the editorial staff of the Bengali newspaper
Ananda Bazar Patrika, he continued to write fiction and was also prominent for his
editorials in the press.
Subodh Ghoses stories are marked by a strong vigorous narrative style and a
lively universe of people and places drawn from the writers formidable range of life
experiences. It is no surprise that several of his stories were made into classic
Bengali and Hindi films, and that the awards he received came from both the literary
and film worlds.
Ghosh however, though considered to be slightly lower down in the hierarchy
and in years than Tarasankar, remains popular to this day as a favourite of
filmmakers in Hindi and Bengali. Among the most popular films based on Subodh
Ghosh stories are Bimal Roys Sujata, Ritwik Ghataks Ajantrik, Mrinal Sens Ek
Adhuri Kahani, Basu Chatterjis Chit Chor, Nabyendu Chatterjee's Parasuramer
Kuthar, Tapan Sinhas Jotugriha, Gulzars Izaazat, (an improvised and individualised
version of Jotugriha) Prabhat Roys Shedin Choitromash and Suraj Kumar Barjatiyas
Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon, which incidentally, is an updated and much more
sophisticated and glamorised version of Chit Chor. Winner of the Sahitya Akademi
Award, Subodh Ghosh also won the Filmfare award as the best storywriter twice: in
1959 for Sujata, and posthumously for Izzazat (based on "Jatugriha") in 1988.
These films are a mere drop in the ocean of novels, novelettes and short
stories penned by one of the most popular among contemporary writers of fiction in
Bengali literature. Ghosh, who began his career with a novel named Ekti Nomoshkare
has been widely translated in major Indian languages including English. His range of
works stands testimony to his versatility and in his ability to move back and forth
through genres ranging from the historic research-based work Bharat Premkatha to a
collection of folk tales aimed at children captured in Kingbodontir Desh, to the
tackling of private issues like adultery (Kinu Goyalar Goli made into a moving Bengali
film), or, divorce resulting from a barren marriage such as in Jotugriha, or the man in
the margin such as in Shuno Boronari (made into a film with Uttam Kumar and
Supriya Debi in the lead) and in Thogini (made into a film with Sandhya Roy in the
title role) which narrates the story of a young girl who is initiated by a parasitical
father to con young men into marriage and then run away with the booty to settle
down in another place in search of another prey. Ghoshs rich imagination finds
ultimate expression in his ability to humanize a dilapidated car in the last dregs of its
existence a la Jogoddal, which Ritwik Ghatak chose to immortalize in Ajantrik. He is
still renowned as one of the best short story writers in Bengali literature and is taught
as such within the syllabus for Bengali literature in most of the universities where
Bengali is offered as a major for post-graduate studies and doctoral and post-doctoral
research.
Synopsis
An untouchable girl is sheltered in infancy in an emergency, when her kinfolk
die in a plague epidemic, by an engineer, Upendranath Choudhury (Tarun Bose), and
his wife, Charu (Sulochana), of Brahmin caste. The family assumes the arrangement

11
to be temporary hoping a suitable home would be found for the child. In the course of
various postponements of finding the girl a home, the family becomes attached to
the child and she is brought up with their own daughter of similar age. The
untouchable girl is named Sujata meaning well born. In later years as the girls grow
Sujata (Nutan) is sometimes referred to by acquaintances of the family as their
daughter. Charu always parries this but says that Sujata is like her own daughter.
Sujata within this ambience of affection, warmth and love, is aware from this phrase
that she is in some way different from the girl she regards as her sister.
Sujata's low-caste roots do not particularly trouble the parents till it is time to
arrange the marriage of their own daughter, Rama (Shashikala). Rama's marriage has
been fixed long ago with another Brahmin family whose scion is the handsome and
promising Adhir (Sunil Dutt). Adhirs family, consisting solely of a highly conservative
aunt who is fiercely protective and proud of her Brahmin roots, is deeply disturbed to
discover that an untouchable girl has so long lived in Upen Babus house as one of
their own. However, she insists that the girl should be married off to a man of her
caste before Adhir and Rama can be married to avoid the embarrassment her
presence would cause during Ramas wedding. Destiny, through one of those
unexplainable sleights of hand, plays another trick. Adhir falls head over heels with
Sujata during his visits to the house. He does not shy away from professing his love
to her. Sujata is initially confused with the surge of strange feelings within her in
response to Adhirs approach, but ultimately surrenders to her own feelings and
makes no secret of it to Adhir.
All hell breaks loose when Adhir tells his widowed aunt that he has fallen in
love with Sujata and wishes to marry her and not Rama. Charu is outraged. Her
feelings of outrage change to feelings of anger and condemnation for Sujata because
she holds the innocent girl responsible for having spoilt the alliance between Rama,
her daughter and Adhir. That the marriage of her own daughter has been frustrated
by the untouchable girl they have sheltered is something she cannot bear. During
one of her tirades against Sujata, she falls off the stairs and loses a lot of blood. A
blood transfusion is needed. No match is found within the family or even from Adhir.
Ironically, it is Sujatas blood group that is found to match Charus, a girl she insisted
on saying was like her daughter. Sujata donates her own blood to save Charu's life
and Charu finally learns that blood has no caste and accepts that Sujata is as much
her daughter as Rama is. The film closes with the suggestion of an acceptance of
Sujatas marriage to Adhir with the parental sanction of both families.
Adhir, a college teacher with a romantic bent of mind, is burdened with the
responsibility of carrying forth the heritage of tradition. He finds himself torn between
his love for an untouchable girl, considered to be a social outcaste in spite of having
had an open and respectable upbringing, and that of fulfilling the wishes of his
domineering and fundamentalist aunt. For him, at times, it appears to be a losing
battle between the progressive forces brought about by a democratic India and a
post-Tagorean Bengal, and the pressures of oppressive tradition that forms part of his
genetic and social legacy. Despite the fact that his character is not fully fleshed out,
Sunil Dutt shines as the low-key-yet-clear-in-his-convictions Adhir as a perfect foil to
Nutan. He realizes it is her film and at no time tries to corner the limelight for himself.
The rest of the cast supports the lead pair perfectly.
Analysis:
Bimal Roy is one of the first Indian directors noted for simplicity and
understatement in the treatment of his films. Sujata is one of the best examples of
this. One never finds him loud or ludicrous, except, perhaps, slightly, in the scene of

12
the telephonic song where Adhir sings a Hindi song with the tune adapted from a
Tagore original by S.D. Burman. In the other technical departments too, the film
excels. The chiaroscuro cinematography using diffusion lens and backlighting for
many close-ups of Sujata in her myriad moods adds to the lyrical rhythm of the film.
Sujata is a sensitively directed film with the romantic scenes between Adhir and
Sujata taking on a lyrical, poetic rhythm. The story is told in a series of deft,
restrained episodes never ever lapsing into self-pity that could have easily marred
the film. And unlike a P.C. Barua, whose Devdas Roy had photographed before
remaking the film himself, where a death or two would have seen the story out of its
tangled web, the director in Bimal Roy insisted that such a marriage is not only
possible, but is more importantly, necessary.
When the film opens, one hears the sound of stones being broken on a hill. A
bridge is being built. There is news of a cholera epidemic in the basti number two
that houses the coolies who work at the stone-chipping site and they are on the run
for fear of being infected. The following day happens to be the birthday celebrations
of the site engineer Upen Babus little girl, Rama. Against this prologue, the title
graphics begin to come up. A couple of coolies approach Upen Babu with a tiny infant
in the arms of one. They inform Upen Babu that the infant girl is the sole survivor of
trolley-coolie Bundans family. Both Bundan and his wife have succumbed to cholera.
Bundan was of low caste and no one in the village is willing to take care of the baby
because not a single person belongs to that caste. Wolves were waiting to pick up the
baby when these coolies brought her to Upen Babu. This marks the entry of Sujata
into Upen Babus family as an infant. She remains completely unaware of her genetic
roots till she is grown up. Unlike her more liberal, progressive-thinking husband,
Charu tries her best to resist forming a bond with Sujata. The maternal spirit within
her won't be denied nor will it allow her to send Sujata off to an orphanage.
The film is shot with rich lyrical tonal quality and evocative framing that bring
out the human emotions of the story. And helping to lift the film several notches is its
evergreen musical score by S.D. Burman. It is laced with such masterpieces like Jalte
Hain Jiske Liye, Kali Ghata Chhaye, Hawa Dheere Aana, Bachpan ke Din and Sun
Mere Bandhu rendered by Burmanda himself. Jalte Hain Jiske Liye is perhaps the
piece de resistance of the film. It must rank as one of the best romantic solos in
Indian Cinema and one of singer Talat Mehmood's finest songs. Hawa Dheere Aana
remains to date one of the most enduring lullabies ever in Hindi Cinema. Geeta Dutt
is in full form in this delicate little lullaby making prime use of her voice with
minimum orchestral support of just a jal tarang and Asha Bhonsale impresses with
Kali Ghata Chhaye. Other songs include the cute Asha-Geeta duet Bachpan ke Din
Bhi Kya Din The and the Mohammad Rafi solo number Wah Bhai Wah. And to push its
humanistic message, the film includes an elaborate stage performance of Tagore's
dance drama Chandalika.
Posing the toughest problem of all in class and genealogical terms, namely,
the pollution of blood and the mingling of blood structure the narrative. vi The
opposing views on untouchability are counterposed in dramatic conflict along various
points in the narrative. The viewers identification with and empathy for the central
character of Sujata is ensured through every means available to mainstream cinema
star quality (Nutan, Sunil Dutt and Shashikala in the three main roles), beautiful
musical score (S.D. Burman), and the apt placement and choreography of songs that
chart every dramatic event that takes the story ahead from the scene where Rama
sings a paean to their bonding as sisters as kids, through the birthday scene to
Sujatas humming to herself in the garden to the boatmans song where Adhir and
Sujata come close for the first time in the film; cinematic techniques like the closeup, the silhouette shot on the banks of the river, the point of view shots and framing,

13
the narrative pleasures of romance, and a happy ending after the suspense and the
catharsis.
The Women in Sujata
Through Sujata, Bimal Roy gives the women a voice they can call their own,
not only through the soft characterization of Sujata herself, who is almost like a
painting done in water colours, subdued, feminine and diffident, yet grateful to her
adoptive parents without knowing the truth of her status, but also through the other
female characters in the film. Rama for instance, is diametrically opposite of Sujata.
Their upbringing is clearly filled by markers that show the difference. Rama has a
good education but the script is completely silent about why Sujata was not allowed
to continue her education. If Charu had objections, what was Upen Babu doing? The
apparent equality is thus shown up to be a faade. Is Sujata really a daughter of
the house? Or is she a convenient handmaid to helps Charu run the household with
clock-work and silent efficiency?
Rama is loud, but the loudness is a cover for her tender feelings for the sister
she loves dearly. She is the first and the only person within Upen Babus family to
wizen up to the mutual attraction between Adhir and Sujata. In fact, she consciously
makes herself scarce and leaves when Adhir comes to their house to allow the lovers
to be with each other. She plays tennis, participates in her college functions, throws
lavish birthday parties and is generally a fun-loving young woman who remains
unspoilt by the care and attention her mother showers on her. The difference
between Sujata and Rama is tellingly captured in the song Bachpan ke din. Rama is a
carefree lady of leisure, plonking the piano while Sujata is soft-spoken and hardworking, enjoying the song even as she expertly folds the laundry. Ramas character
is truly endearing. She is probably the person who has accepted Sujata
unconditionally. She calls her Didi, stands up for her sister when Adhir's aunt scoffs at
Sujata's illiteracy and giggles teasingly with her sister while pointing out knowingly
that she knows Adhirs taste. She does all this with a casual air without either her or
the director making a major production of this, heartwarmingly underlying the fact
that this is nothing special --- this is how 'any' sibling would behave
The two women with negative shades, Charu, as Sujatas adoptive mother,
and Bua-ji, Adhirs widowed aunt, present a microcosm of women who belong to the
time and place-setting Sujata represents. Charu is gullible enough to succumb to the
machinations of Bua-ji who questions her looking after a girl who is an untouchable
by birth. This begins to change her attitude towards Sujata which was already
different from the treatment she gave to her biological daughter Rama. The central
mother-daughter relationship is calibrated really well. The mother's innate goodness
is captured as well as the paradigm shifts in her attitude towards Sujata. Sujata
yearns for her mother's affection but is made aware of being an achhut by her foster
mother in a fit of pique.
Bua-ji, played by Lalita Pawar, noted for her negative roles in mainstream
Hindi cinema, is much in control under the directorial baton of Roy. She brings to
Upen Babus home, a pundit in order to enlighten the family about the demerits of
having an untouchable girl under the same roof as theirs. Panditj says that a kind of
poisonous gas emanates from the bodies of untouchable people. This gas pollutes the
bodies, minds and spirits of people born into high or upper castes. When Upen Babu
asks him, have you actually seen this gas? He retorts by telling him, have you
seen vitamins? Upen Babus is not convinced with the pundits argument. This
infuriates Bua-ji who threatens to go away to Kashi for good.

14
Neither Charu nor Bua-ji is really bad. It is their upbringing within a framework
of old-age and an outdated belief that makes them behave the way they do. One
point common between the two is their apparent lack of education. If Charu appears
to be slightly more open than Bua-ji, it is because she is married to a progressive
man like Upen Babu and is also, much younger than Bua-ji and is distanced from her
through age. The difference between the two is more of degree than of kind. If Charu
finally accepts Sujata only when she learns that it is her blood that partly runs in her
veins, then Bua-ji too, bends under the pressure of the deep affection and love she
feels for her nephew who refuses to marry any woman other than Sujata.
Gandhi, Buddha and Sujata
Mahatma Gandhi is a palpable and physical presence in Sujata, the film.
Many shots have been used with Barrackpores Gandhi Ghat as the backdrop.
Interestingly, all these shots are focused exclusively with either Adhir or Sujata in the
frame and no other character in the film is ever present here. In some shots, the
camera pans up to close into Gandhis empanelled mural on the wall, including him
as an omniscient but silent presence in the film. Using Gandhiji's sayings and
example in his narrative in the touching scene where Sujata runs out of the house in
a night of rain and storm to the Gandhi Ghat, probably to commit suicide, Roy makes
palpable his desire for an egalitarian world. When Sujata is stopped from attending
Rama's stage programme, Adhir leaves the show midway and meets Sujata. He
conveys the programme's message and boosts Sujata's self-confidence with the film's
best line: Aatma ninda aatma hatya se bhi bada paap hai.
There are several references to Gandhi in the film. In one poignant scene, as
they stand together along Barrackpores Gandhi Ghat, Adhir tells Sujata that once,
when out of the blue, some people donated a sum of Rs.13, 000 to Gandhi when
everyone was ready to reject him for having taken in an untouchable girl within the
Ahmedabad Ashram. Gandhi stood his ground and refused to let the girl go away
even when he knew that the very existence of the Ashram would stand threatened by
this move.
Sujata is ideological in the sense that it presents the possibility of the ideal
society in the here and now under the spirit of Gandhi, who is a sort of patron saint to
Sujata, saving her once from suicide and unfailingly offering comfort, strength and
hope in her darkest moments. In fact, the very idea of the narrative situation, that of
an untouchable being adopted by an upper-caste family, is taken from the
teachings of Gandhi.vii
Roy departs from the original source by incorporating an abstract from
Rabindranath Tagores dance drama Chandalika within the main narrative as part of a
programme in Ramas college. The original Subodh Ghosh story used an annual sport
event as a strategy for taking Adhir away from the scene back to where Sujata was,
at home. This change from the sporting event in the literary source to the staging of
the dance drama Chandalika where Rama is shown portraying the title role, is a
pointer to Roys perceptions of the appropriate.
Chandalika (The Untouchable Girl, 1933) is a full-fledged dance drama based
on a Buddhist legend under the umbrella title of Sardulakarnavadana. It is the story
of a low-caste girl called Prakriti, who refuses to acknowledge the handicaps that are
attached to people born low such as not being allowed to touch or be touched by
people of higher birth. While she is grappling with the tragedy of her birth, a disciple
of the Buddha named Ananda, steps in to ask her for drink of water to quench his
thirst. When she tells him that she cannot give him water to drink as she is an

15
untouchable, he insists, saying that there is no such thing as high or low birth and
being born human is the only caste there is in this world. Having quenched his thirst,
he leaves but Chandalika has already fallen in love with him. She approaches her
mother, who has occult powers, and implores her to use them and bring Ananda back
to her. Her mother appeals to her not to distract a spiritual person from his penance,
but Prakriti insists.
However, as she watches the transformation of Ananda being brought back to
her, through her mothers magic mirror, she realizes that this man is not the Ananda
she has met; it is only the body, which is the shell that protects his soul and his spirit.
Her claim over his body will not get her his soul. She asks her mother to stop her
magic chant and in the original Buddha legend, she renounces the material world of
her own will. In Sujata, the audience is shown the segment where Ananda is asking
Prakriti for a drink of water and when Prakriti is afraid of satisfying his thirst, he
explains to her the philosophy of humanity and her life changes forever. In Upen
Babus home, the scene shifts to the garden with an exchange between Sujata and
Adhir, and these shots are intercut with the shots of the dance drama at the college.
The progressive upper caste and its attitude to Dowry
In response to the urgings of Bua-ji and his wife Charu, to find a match for
Sujata before Adhirs marriage to Rama can be finalized, Upen Babu places an
advertisement in the matrimonial column of a newspaper. One Haricharan arrives at
Upen Babus home to make enquiries. It turns out that they were class fellows in
college. Haricharan thinks that Rama is the proposed bride. During the conversation,
when Upen Babu asks him about his expectations for the proposal of his son in
marriage, Haricharan puts up a strong protest. He carries on a brief tirade against the
system of dowry in a Hindu marriage. He goes on at length about the insignificance
of money when compared with mans integrity, culture and capacity. The family
background is not important, he says. What is important is the man himself. If the
man is not good, what will I do with his ancestry, tell me? Will I lick it up? He Ram,
when will our society open its eyes? When Upen Babu asks him what his son is
doing, Haricharan informs him that though the son is a graduate, he is not interested
in a nine-to-five job because he is a man of independent spirit. He goes on to add
that business which interests his son, calls for funds, especially in an age of
competition. Upen Babu is intelligent enough to grasp the underpinnings of this
comment. He assures Haricharan that he would offer every kind of support in setting
up the son in his own business.
However, as soon as Haricharan learns that the girl in question is not Upen
Babus daughter, or even a close relation, but an untouchable, he leaves in a huff,
warning Upen Babu to stop fooling people with false matrimonial ads in newspapers.
This is when the Interval sign flashes on screen. This scene is cinematographed in a
straightforward manner, in the lounge of Upen Babus bungalow. Mani Chatterjee
puts up a realistic portrayal as Haricharan, his mood-swings captured effectively both
through dialogue as well as through expression. This scene is a telling comment on
the hypocrisy that defines the genteel intellectual class of upwardly mobile Brahmins.
Blood transfusion in Sujata
The climactic scene where Sujatas blood is transferred to Charu following her
fall from the stairs is Bimal Roys personal contribution that does not exist in the
original novel. Reel 95 has the blood transfer sequence. Charu lies unconscious on
the bed. When the doctor informs Upen Babu that his wife needs blood immediately,
each family member and even Adhir lend themselves to find if there is a match.
There is no match. Finally, they call upon Sujata. Surprisingly, her blood matches

16
perfectly with Charus. In reel 96, the camera captures a top-angle shot of Sujata and
Adhir following the blood transfusion. My blood is poisonous, go away from this
breath for your own good, she tells him. She has penned a letter addressed to him
which lies on a table. As Adhir slowly walks out of the room, the letter flies away in
the soft breeze to land somewhere, unknown to Adhir. It is later discovered by Upen
Babu and he reads it out to Charu when she comes back to her senses in more
ways than one.
The question is why did Bimal Roy incorporate this scene into the film when
it was nowhere in the original? Does it make more sense? Yes, it does. It stands out as
a living irony to all that has gone before in the film, beginning with the coolie coming
to Upen Babus house carrying a new-born infant in his arms, right till the time when
Charu falls off the stairs, calling for a blood transfusion. The blood transfusion is a
culmination of the argument Bimal Roy began the film with that the innate
goodness of a human being is what counts above everything else.
But then, he could have achieved this with a male character as well, wouldnt
he? Not really. Had the infant been a boy instead of a girl, Upen Babu might not have
taken the responsibility of taking the infant into his home in the first place. The girl
being brought up within the four walls of a home with the biological child of her foster
parents also a girl, made it possible for Bimal Roy to explore and to express all the
myriad emotions he had in mind ranging from sisterhood to motherhood, to love, to
rejection, father-daughter relationship, the rigours of housework, the direct links to
nature in the garden scenes, and everything that goes along with the business of
day-to-day life. The colour and thickness of blood does not really differ between one
man or woman to another, is the message of the film. He underscores this when
Ramas blood does not match her own mothers blood group, yet Sujatas does. Some
critics found this bit of concrete symbolism a bit too loud when placed within the
subtle and lyrical mood of the rest of the film. But considering that the audience is a
medley of caste, class, education, urban-rural background and sex, perhaps it is this
cosmopolitan nature of the Indian audience that might have triggered this
incorporation. In retrospect, it does not seem forced or melodramatic in the least.
Chakravartyviii insists that the film is the culmination of an ultimate vision, for
it integrates within the construct of the nation, the self-sufficiency implicit in the
modern bourgeois family and the ties of blood and genealogy that characterize Indian
notions of family. She critiques the blood donation by saying that Sujatas giving
blood to save her adoptive mothers life is the ultimate test to prove herself so that it
is now alright for the Choudhury family to accept her within its own caste identity and
social milieu. Sujata must transcend the conditions of her birth before she can truly
belong, and the agent of her upliftment is not something that she does but
something that is her blood; its type matches that of the dying Charu. According to
Chakravarty therefore, while making the point that caste is not a matter of polluted
blood, Sujata, the film, actually reinforces the existence of caste by making the
breaking of caste barriers dependent on accident.
Nutan in and as Sujata
Sujata sees yet another sparkling performance from Nutan in the central role.
Yet another because, with sterling performances in heroine-centric films like Paying
Guest, Tere Ghar Ke Saamne, Baarish, Sone Ki Chidiya, Seema, Dilli Ka Thug and
others, Nutan had established herself as one of the finest actresses of the Hindi
screen. Irrespective of director, role or banner, Nutan always gave of her best without
the need to glamorize herself unless the role demanded it. It is perhaps surpassed
only by her performance in the other Bimal Roy film she did, Bandini. Nutan enacts

17
the role of the untouchable girl with stunning grace and is able to convey her hurt,
her trauma with just a glance or a gesture. She proves once again what a thinking
actress she was and as one who tried to fathom the inchoate motivations of the
characters she played. She could convey much more with just a look or a fleeting
glance than most actresses could with expansive dialogue. In fact Lata Mangeshkar
singled her out as the heroine whose expressions came closest to suggest that she
was actually singing the song herself.
One story that did the rounds of the studios after Sujata became a box office
hit wherever it was released. It said that Nutan did not initially agree to don the dark
make-up Bimal Roy had planned for the character of Sujata she had to portray.
According to Bimal Roy, Sujata had to be dark-skinned in order to distinguish her from
the rest of the family, as she was an untouchable and Upen Babu belonged to the
highest caste of Brahmins. Nutan was insecure about wearing dark-toned make-up
and stood her ground for some time while Bimal Roy patiently waited for his leading
lady to agree to his idea. She relented at length on the condition that the make-up
would not be black. The real life irony in this story lies in that Nutan looked perhaps
the most beautiful among all her screen roles as Sujata in the dark make-up with that
tiny bindi in the middle of her eyebrows, wearing a simple Bengali cotton sari with
the pallu tied around her waist as she goes about silently doing her household
chores.
She does her work to the dot and one could clock her precisely. When Adhir
asks Rama where Sujata is, Rama looks at the wall clock and says, If it is four, she
must be up on the terrace picking out the washing. Sujata's world collapses around
her when she overhears her mother saying that she wants Adhir to marry Rama. Roy,
a master of semiotics, shows Sujata retreating to another room and switching off the
lights --- her hopes. Even when Adhir insists that he does not believe in caste
distinctions, Sujata turns down his marriage proposal. Sujata does not sacrifice her
love because of her caste but because of her devotion to the only mother she has
ever known. It takes a convoluted catastrophe to open the floodgates of Charu's
heart.
An interesting departure from the original, among some other important ones,
is in Bimal Roys naming of his central character Sujata that is also the title of the
film. In the Subodh Ghosh original story, the girls name was Ambalika whereas the
novel has the same name as the film, Sujata. Perhaps, the decision sprung from the
fact that the film was being made in Hindi for an all-India audience, and thus, Sujata
meaning a girl of high birth would carry many meanings metaphorical, literal,
social, for the national audience. It also evolves into a strong and satiric comment on
casteism because Sujata is born to untouchable parents but her adoptive parents of
high birth choose to name her Sujata. Does biological birth determine the birth of a
child, metaphorically speaking? Or is it the environment she is brought up in shape
her to what she becomes as an adult? Or, rather, is it her inner being that determines
her birth? All these questions get raised through the film in so low-key a manner
that one tends to miss them completely unless one was actually looking at them
closely.
Ambalika is a name that has no direct link to the subject of the story,
underlined in the title Sujata. But Sujata as the name of the central character,
narrows the focus to the essence of the story, that gently and almost caressingly
comments on the ironies of casteism, sheds light on little-known areas of the
differences that lie between natural and adoptive motherhood, and last, but never

18
the least, on the universality of love that knows no barriers of caste, class, race, or
birth.
The character of Sujata is a poignant issue of impersonation. ix While exploring
and trying to negotiate the right match for Sujata, it is discovered that she fits
neither into the caste she is born into nor into the caste she has been imbibed in and
adopted by. She is a Brahmin among untouchables and an untouchable among
Brahmins. She, along with the audience is always conscious of her split identity. The
fact that Sujata is an untouchable by birth is almost incidental, though it has a crucial
importance in the unfolding of the narrative. Sujatas associations are with Nature
and we see her at regular intervals in close proximity and in happy harmony with
Nature watering the plants and flowers in the garden, cinematographed with the
upper half of her face seen rising from a cluster of flowers, a chandramallika flower
being he only ornament she adorns her hair with, etc. The song she sings to herself
in the garden kali ghata chhaye mora jiya tarsaaye, aise mein kahin koi mil jaaye is
also a paean to Nature, heralding the coming of rains.
On a night of rain and storm, she runs out on the banks of the Gandhi Ghat,
wishing to end her life. The end of her sari gets caught in a sculpted mural of Gandhi
with an inscription that stops her from taking the ultimate step. These scenes are
used as subtle markers to stress the ironic fact of her birth juxtaposed against her
natural and biological sense of inner alienation from the world of people close to her,
as they are of high birth and do not really come from the world she does. Nature
perhaps, has a better understanding of this untouchable girl than people like Adhirs
Bua and her adoptive mother Charu do.
During the birthday song sequence where Rama (Shashikala) plonks on the
piano as her friends belt out tum jeeyo hazaaron saal saal, the scene cuts to a
flashback showing Rama and Sujata as little girls. Rama is sitting on Charus lap and
eating milk pudding out of her mothers hands. Rama is dressed in a brand new party
frock. A surprised Sujata asks Charu why she is feeding Rama, why Rama is sitting on
Charus lap, why she is wearing and new frock and so on. Rama says that it is her
birthday. The child Sujata begins to pester Charu to celebrate her birthday as well,
because she too, would like to wear a new frock, to sit on her Ammis lap, to eat milk
pudding out of her hands. Charu fails to cope with Sujatas demands and gets
extremely irritated. She asks the ayah to take Sujata away. But Sujata puts up a fight
with the ayah, refusing to leave till she is forcibly taken away as she thrashes about
in the ayahs arms and screams and shouts in protest. As the flashback ends in a
dissolve, the scene shifts to the beautiful garden of Upen Babus house.
Close shot: Sujata (Adhir in voice-over.)
CUT
Long mid-shot: Sujata and Adhir. Adhir comes close to Sujata. The camera
tracks towards the two.
Sujata: You came away.
Adhir: And why did you come away?
Sujata: You will not understand.
Adhir: I have already understood.
Sujata: No one on earth has the power to understand all this.
Adhir: I have the power. But thats just a one-time thing Sujata. Then, why are
you so unhappy?
Sujata moves away.
Sujata: Which one-time thing are you referring to?

19
Adhir: This thing about your Ammi always refers to you as like my daughter,
instead of my daughter.
CUT
Voice-over: Why are you crying Sujata, you are indeed Upen Babus daughter.
CUT
Close-shot: Adhir
Adhir: Who in this world can deny this truth?
CUT
Close-shot: The camera moves behind Sujata. Adhir enters frame.
Sujata: Do you accept this?
Adhir in voice-over: Absolutely.
Sujata: Tell that to me again, just once?
Adhir: Why once? Ill say it over and over again, a thousand times. The truth is
that you are Upendra Babus daughter.
CUT
Sujata and Adhir move to the left. Adhir in frame.
Adhir: Sujata, when is your birthday?
Sujata: Must be there somewhere, in the dark.
Adhir: I dont understand.
Sujata: When youve understood this much, why cant you understand that no
one knows when my birthday falls.
Adhir: I say.
Sujata: To whom?
Adhir: To the twinkling stars in the sky. The stars were twinkling exactly the
same way that day too, Sujata. If I tell you that Id like to give you a birthday
gift in remembrance of that day, will you accept it Sujata?
Sujata: Ive got it already.
Adhir: Youve got it? How?
CUT
Close-shot: Sujata and Adhir.
Sujata: You have bestowed the dignity of being human to one whose birthday
is unknown to the world. I do not wish a gift greater than the fact that you
have recognized my sorrow as sorrow per se.
CUT
Long mid-shot: Sujata and Adhir
Adhir: Sujata!
CUT
Mid-shot: Coconut leaves
CUT
Mid-shot: Sujata and Adhir. Sujata is leaving.
Sujata: But I am scared. All this happiness is something I might not be able to
bear!
End of birthday scene (Reel Three)x
From this scene, Adhir appears to love repeating Sujatas name. His tone of
voice is soft and caressing in tone and pitch when he talks to her, especially when he
pronounces her name. This comes up in the film again and again, juxtaposed against
Sujata not addressing him by his first name ever. Her references are always to Adhir
Babu, perhaps to acknowledge her realization of the fact that in some way she
cannot place her finger on, she is inferior to him. Sunil Dutt exudes sincerity. His
character is the embodiment of good and Dutt makes him believable. Nutan, carries
the film's dramatic weight outstandingly well on her responsible shoulders. She is
often quiet yet her expressive eyes illuminate her character's innermost thoughts and
feelings.
In his deftly crafted screenplay, Nabendu Ghosh etches a fully fleshed-out
character and as the film moves along, one feels as if Ghosh wrote out the character

20
with Nutan in mind. Roy interestingly uses Nature to convey Sujata's moods. Another
garden sequence expresses this link between Sujata and her love for nature. There's
a subdued yet entrancing romanticism in this love scene, where Adhir conspires with
himself to meet Sujata in the garden lauding the fact that tumhara sabse bada gun
yehi hai ke tumme gun nahin hai [your greatest quality is that you have none.]
Garden Scene in Upen Babus House
Mid-shot: Sujata is in the garden, watering the plants. Adhir comes and stands
close to her. A startled Sujata moves a bit away from him to the left.
Sujata: Rama must be studying in her room now.
Adhir: No, she isnt. I just met her. Shes gone out to play.
Sujata: Oh!
CUT
Long mid-shot: Sujata enters the frame from the left followed by Adhir.
Adhir: Sujata, in this garden, you are really in full bloom.
CUT
Close mid-shot: Sujata
Voice-over of Adhir: Do you know which is your best quality?
Sujata: Quality?
CUT
Mid-shot: Sujata and Adhir
Yes. Your best quality is that you have none.
Sujata: How is Bua-ji keeping now?
Adhir: Is this an answer to my question?
Sujata: Then tell me what to say.
Adhir : Can you pick out my best quality?
Sujata: You have tons of talent. I have no capacity to elaborate on them at
length. CUT
Mid-close-up: Sujata and Adhir
Adhir: Okay then. Lets hear my negative points.
Sujata: Negative points?
Adhir: Yes, my biggest fault.
Sujata: I dont know and I cannot even begin to understand all this.
Adhir: You dont understand? My biggest fault is that I come here just to look
at you. CUT
Mid-shot: A shriveled leaf
CUT
Close-shot: A shy Sujata
CUT
Sujata: Ammi is inside. Wont you look her up?
CUT
Adhir and Sujata begin to move from the left.
Adhir: Come along, Ill look her up.
CUTxi
There are other sequences where Sujatas oneness with Nature comes across
movingly. A fluttering fern mirrors Sujata's state. And when a devastated Sujata goes
out near Gandhiji's statue in the middle of a thunderstorm, the whole cosmos seems
to be weeping with her, or the silken serenade over the phone --- Jalte hai jiske liye.
Sujata is a floating signifier, writes Chakravarty. xii Her natural parents are
dead when the film opens and her entry into the dominant social order must be
initiated through a reconstruction of genealogy and blood links. In spatial terms, she
must move from outside society to inside it, from a natural state to marriage and
domestication, from poverty and dependence to wealth and social position.
Membership into the family is sanctioned through marriage into the same higher
caste she has been adopted by.

21
Conclusion:
The transgenerational insight into the characters and personalities of the four
women is brought across with conviction and without resort to any melodrama or
sensationalisation of the several issues involved caste ostracism; adoption and its
implications in a family where a natural child already exists; love between a highcaste, highly educated young man and a low-caste, uneducated young woman;
suicide as the easiest and shortest but dispensable escape route for girls like Sujata;
the strong bond of sisterhood that sustains between two girls brought up by the same
set of parents within the same family though they are not real sisters at all; the
possibility of marriage between two social unequals based solely on love; blood
transfusion as proof of caste being purely a social condition without any basis
whatsoever in science, history or even God; and so on. In its mechanism of pleasure,
blend of realism and idealism, and the humanitarian vision that it embodies, denote a
powerful, if fading current in the symbolic universe of the 1950s.
Sujata won the Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Storywriter
awards at the Filmfare awards in 1960 at a time when awards for Indian cinema at
home were highly valued and were not a part of an anonymous medley of indifferent
and manipulated spate of private awards. Roy took some liberties with the original.
But these celluloid improvisations enhanced the richness of the film's texture. It is
one of the most beautiful celluloid representations of romanticism that evolved into a
strong social statement against untouchability, spreading the message of the
universality of love that extends not only beyond caste, class and status but also
beyond blood. Sujata gives the woman a voice, mainly through her silence, her
subdued personality, her acceptance of her marginalized existence within the
framework of a family she is eternally grateful to. She does not respond, except
through silent tears when Adhir sings to her through the telephone. She never
answers back when reprimanded. She expresses her confusion when she discovers
that Bua-ji avoids anything she touches but does not express anger at this
condemnation. Her voice is defined more by her silence than by its articulation. And
from within this silence, Bimal Roy makes her voice her statement.
**********************************
References:
1. Original Screenplay from National Film Archive of Pune
2. A Tribute to Bimal Roy by B.K. Karanjia, Filmfare, February 04,
1966,p.19.
3. The Films of Bimal Roy, article in Movie, December 82/93.
4. Peoples Director Bimal Roy, Star & Style, February 1966, p.6.
5. The Bimal Roy Era, by Hameeduddin Mahmood, Filmfare, March 04,
1966, p.18.
6. Bimal Roy A Man of Silence, Rinki Bhattacharya, Harper Collins, 1994,
pp.102-107.
7. Life and Work Bimal Roy A Critical Study, F. Rangoonwalla, NFAI,
1991.
8. Bimal Roy Dinesh Raheja, Rediff-On-The-Net website archive
9. Milestones Achhut Kanya (1936) by B.D. Garga, Movie, September
1984, pp.97-98.

Rangoonwalla, F.: Life and Work Bimal Roy A Critical Study, NFAI, 1991.
Lecture delivered at Seminar on Bimal Roy at Nehru Auditorium, Calcutta, organised by Bimal Roy Memorial Trust, in a
weeklong programme in January 2002.
ii

iii

Lecture-demonstration at Seminar on Bimal Roy at Nehru Auditorium, Calcutta, organised by Bimal Roy Memorial Trust,
in a weeklong programme in January 2002.
iv
Interview with the author, 2002.
v
Chakravarty, Sumita, S.: National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema 1947-1987; OUP, Delhi, 1996, p.112.
vi

Ibid. p.112.
Ibid.113.
viii
Ibid.114.
ix
Ibid.p.85.
x
Original screenplay, Courtesy: National Film Archive of India, Pune.
xi
Ibid. Original screenplay
xii
Ibid. Chakravarty. p.85.
vii