Director: Satyajit Ray; Writer: Munshi Premchand, Amrit Rai, Satyajit Ray; Producer: Bolai Addy, Tej Bahadur, Trailokya Das; Cinematographer: Soumendu Roy; Editor: Dulal Dutta; Cast: Om Puri, Mohan Agashe, Smita Patil, Richa Mishra, Geeta Siddharth, Bhaiyalal Hedao
Duration: 00:45:35; Aspect Ratio: 1.290:1; Hue: 117.859; Saturation: 0.011; Lightness: 0.417; Volume: 0.065; Cuts per Minute: 11.649
Summary: Short film, derived from a Premchand short story, made as a companion piece to Pikoo (1980) for Doordarshan. The indolent Brahmin Ghashiram (Agashe) gets the low- caste bonded labourer Dukhi (Puri) to perform several onerous tasks while denying him food. While chopping a giant log with a blunt axe, as instructed, Dukhi dies of exhaustion, leaving a grieving widow (Patil) and child in the village. Ghashiram, in a muddy and rain-soaked landscape, is last seen dragging the corpse away. In casting actors associated with the Bombay-based New Indian Cinema (Puri, Agashe, Patil) for this rural drama, Ray made a belated contribution to the 70s rural- exploitation melodrama, a genre eventually adopted by Doordarshan.
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