Paraphrasing Chuck Palahniuk here: When regular people get headaches, they take aspirin. When writers get headaches, they take notes.
Bimal Roy watched Bicycle Thieves at the film festival in Bombay and discovered what a chronicler of despair Vittorio de Sica was! The film showed how a father and son lose their moral compass when pushed to despair over a stolen bicycle. Bimal Roy was just as observant of human frailty. The film inspired him to make Do Bigha Zamin.
The film's story is by Salil Chaudhary and he insisted on writing lyrics of its unforgettable songs, but the film's vision is all Bimal Roy. It remains relevant 63 years after it first released.
Do Bigha Zamin is about a farmer who wants to save his lands—his ‘maa’— from the zamindar (Murad) who wants to build a factory on the land and turn ‘maa' into 'baap’. But the farmer is burdened by several loans he has incurred during a two-year-long drought. So he leaves his family and goes to the city of Kolkata where ‘money simply flies in the sky, and anyone can fulfill his dreams’. But the city is inhospitable…
Balraj Sahni, the suave man from BBC London’s Hindi Service, who dressed in Western suits and ties, taught English (he had a Master’s degree in English Literature) and Hindi at Shantiniketan, was chosen to play the role of Shambhu Mahto, the farmer. Tough to imagine this man wearing tattered clothes day after day, running barefoot, learning to pull the rickshaw from actual rickshaw pullers. But what a phenomenal performance! You smile when he takes rickshaw wallah (Nasir Hussain) and his own son Bachwa (Rattan) on a ride to learn how to drive through Kolkata. For those of us who have lived in Kolkata, we remember the rickshaw wala who took us to school, exactly how Balraj Sahni does in the film.
Your heart sinks when you see how easily farmers who sing ‘Hariyala sawan dhol bajata aaya’ begin wailing an ominous ‘Kuch toh nishani chhod jaa, Kaun kahe is ore, Tu phir aaye na aaye, Mausam beeta jaaye!’ The despair just compounds but no matter how progressively miserable his life gets, Bachwa offers a moral compass. When little Bachwa gives into the temptation of easy money, it is Shambhu who does not lose his goodness.
Salil Chaudhary’s story had a miserable ending, but Bimal Roy’s sensibilities would not allow for so much hopelessness. The film ends with a scene that tells us all is not lost.
Even if you think that your sensibilities have been numbed by loud Bollywood fare offered to us week after week, this film will break that illusion and tug at your hearts.
Zee Classic's Bimal Roy Festival will be presented by Boman Irani. During the series, viewers will get a chance to catch exclusive snippets from a documentary on Bimal Da, courtesy of his son Joy Roy. This will include rare and interesting interviews of Dharmendra, Vyjayanthimala, Gulzar and Ashutosh Gowariker amongst others reminiscing their days with Bimal Roy.
Don’t forget to tune in to 'The Bimal Roy Festival presented by Boman Irani’. Do Bigha Zamin, the first film of the series, airs on Saturday on Zee Classic at 8 pm.
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 "Do Bigha Zamin")
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