Saptapadi

1961
Director: Ajoy Kar
Writer: Tarashankar Banerjee
Awards: 1 win & 1 nomination

(Credited cast)
Uttam Kumar...Krishnendu
Suchitra Sen...Rina Brown
Chhabi Biswas...Krishnendu's Father
Chhaya Devi...Rina's mother (ayah)
Utpal Dutt...Othello (voice)
Tarun Kumar...Krishnendu's friend
Padmadevi...Krishnendu's mother
Pahadi Sanyal...Doctor at army camp

Saptapadi is a tale of redemption.

The soul enters into the body, into flesh and blood, and forgets its real identi
ty, losing its true Self in the labyrinth of the temporal illusory hologram. Whe
n we redeem something, we literally buy it back. When we atone we return to our or
iginal state of being at-one . We return to Union with the One. There is only One.

This soft mystical film can be seen as a romantic tragedy, filled with all the h
opes and heartaches that accompany the sweet promises of true love. While on ano
ther level Saptapadi can been enjoyed as an allegory, the tale of the struggle f
or the soul s redemption.

In Sanskrit terms, Uttam Kumar s character can symbolize Purusha, the calm observe
r within. While Suchitra Sen is Prakriti manifesting as the small identity self,
our human nature, which after a mysterious long and arduous journey must find i
ts way Home again.

The God-within never stops loving us no matter what we do. Our true Self within
is eternally forgiving - for we are that Self. The God-within, the soul, the Atm
a, is always waiting patiently for us to Remember our true Home, to turn to that
which we have always been and recognize that we are loved, that we are Love its
elf.

***

This is one of my favorite films - and even though I will here retell the story
in the hopes of conveying some of the beauty, simplicity, and meaning found in S
aptapadi, I encourage you to see this film for yourself to enjoy the wonderful n
uances of Ajoy Kar s directing, the marvelous expressiveness in the faces of Uttam
Kumar and Suchitra Sen, and the artful use of shadows and light to convey subtl
e emotions in the frame compositions.

Saptapadi opens with a country doctor riding his bicycle down dusty rural lanes
to tend his patients, the sick and the poor. He passes soldiers on the road - th
ere s a war going on and bombers fly overhead. Some English soldiers drive by him
and wave at him, their jeep kicking up dust.

Our doctor, Uttam Kumar, arrives to check on the son of the village station mast
er - whose job it is to flag the trains on. Happily his son is well and the poor
man is so relieved that he says to the kind physician:

You are a messiah for the poor! God shall bless you!

Our humble doctor answers:

Where is that God? You are my God!

Thus is the first moments of the film we come to understand that Uttam Kumar s cha
racter, the doctor, has gained a level of understanding rare in this world. He i
s an enlightened being who sees God everywhere in every man, woman and child.

Riding through the night down dirt roads, Uttam returns to his small village hos
pital, which is little more that a crudely built makeshift clinic. The patients
are lying crowded together in a room and even though he has made a long journey
on bicycle, the doctor quietly checks on each one. He is a man who is evidently
strong, calm, and at peace with himself.

A car arrives at Uttam s rustic clinic with a drunken woman. She s in an army unifor
m, lying face down, and unconscious from alcohol. Uttam turns her over and sees
her face. He freezes, shocked to see the love of his life lying in an alcoholic
stupor, sweating and disheveled in his arms. Stunned at seeing her again after s
o much time has passed, he walks out in a numb silence.

Standing outside in the night s deep shadows, pain overwhelms him. Memories of the
ir happiness together flood his heart and mind. Bittersweet memories pull him ba
ck - back to his youth, to happier times, to college.

Uttam first sees her at a soccer game. Suchitra Sen s character is standing, cheer
ing the game with intense enthusiasm. She s for the other side, the opposing team.
A rather boisterous, confident, even a bit noisy gal, she s angry when Uttam scor
es a goal and cheers when he falls in the mud.

But the fellow Uttam portrays is one of those blessed young men with the kind of
boundless optimism and natural self-esteem that is born of a mother s uncondition
al love. He smiles at the girl s jeers, finding her a challenge. Uttam Kumar has t
he million-dollar smile and his character is that of the all around winner!

Suchitra s friend is hurt in the game and she blames Uttam calling him a hooligan a goonda (thug) - and a brute! Showing her passionate temper, she threatens Utta
m rather absurdly and says that God will punish him - but Uttam smiles and repli
es that he does not believe in God. Our hero has not yet in this youthful moment
found his enlightenment.

Of course the fiery hostility between these two is bound to draw them together.
Suchitra s character - Rina - is said to be half-English and half-Indian. The girl
is even a bit arrogant and condescending. She actually calls Uttam an unculture
d blackie and a stupid idiot.

Fate however draws them together in a school play - the death scene in Othello.
Rina (Suchitra) plays Desdemona and once these two get up close, the chemistry b
etween them is irreversible. She is bold over by the intensely powerful performa
nce he gives as Shakespeare s Othello. There is more to this man than she first sa
w. Like two magnets, the couple surrender their initial hostility to love-struck
joy!

Uttam s character - Krishnendu - excels at school and finishes at the top of his c
lass. He s that guy who can do anything and succeed. Our two lovers eventually dec
ide to marry. At this point in the film there is a song which in my view is one
of the most joyous moments in film history! The two are riding down a winding ro
ad, off to ask her father s permission to marry. All the hopes of youth are wrappe

d up in Suchitra and Uttam's glorious carefree smiles as they sing, fearless, rid
ing blissfully on the road of life together.

La-la-la-la!
If this path does not end,
how would it have been?
You tell me!
If this world had been a land of dreams,
how would it have been?
You tell me!

In a plain we shall sleep on the floor,

In the shade of merry laughter.
It would be nice if my mind gets mixed with merry laughter!

If this world had been a land of dreams,

how would it have been?
You tell me!
La-la-la-la!

In the blue sky beyond those distant boundaries,

I know not why I am lost in the sky today.
If my heart keeps singing these tunes ...

If this world had been a land of dreams,

how would it have been?
You tell me!
La-la-la-la!

Watch the film clip on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN15rNGubQs

Rina s English father does agree to the marriage on the one condition that Uttam/K
rishnendu will convert to Christianity. Rina is Christian, but she doesn t feel it
is right for Krishnendu to give up his own traditions for her. Our hero tells h
er: I believe in only one religion - the religion of mankind. There is no differe
nce between a temple or a church in that religion. So we understand that Krishnen
du already has a more enlightened perspective.

However the young man is well aware that his own father will not give his approv
al for the marriage, but Uttam/Krishnendu loves Rina and doesn t care. He isn t will
ing to lose her on account of religion. His father is a Brahman and a devotee of
the goddess Kali. The father is played by Cchabi Biswas, the famous Bengali act
or who was a favorite of the great director Satyajit Ray.

The day that Uttam/Krishnendu is in church converting to Christianity, Rina is d

ancing around her house arranging flowers and singing. She is happy beyond her w
ildest dreams!

Dead set against the marriage, Krishnendu s father shows up at Rina s door and argue
s with her. He tells her that as an Anglo she can have no status in his family.
She argues for love. But the old man tells her that one day she will awake from
her romantic dream and realize that she and Uttam have no community - in other w
ords they will not belong anywhere in Indian society.

He begs her to give up Krishnendu. If she marries his son, the father swears he
will never meet with him again - Krishnendu will be dead to him. Crushed and afr
aid, Rina gives in. The old man forces her to take an oath to move away from Kri
shnendu s life and never see him again. The tragedy is set.

In the next scene we see the happy confident Uttam/Krishnendu arrive at Rina s doo
r. He has just converted to Christianity and is ready for marriage with his belo
ved. Rina begins to argue senselessly with him. She creates a false obstacle. Sh
e can t respect a man who would give up his own traditions. Naturally she doesn t me
ntion the father s visit or the oath he has forced her to take.

Throwing a contrived temper tantrum - Don t touch me! - the fiery Rina tells Krishne
ndu to get out, get out, get out! She slams the door on him and in a heartbreaki
ng scene, slides down the door onto the floor in a heap of pain and sorrow, sobb
ing in misery, tears flowing from her. Both hearts are destroyed on the old man s
pride.

Uttam/Krishnendu goes into a state of shock. We next see him sitting on the gras
s in front of the cathedral he has just been converted in. The director does not
tell us what he is thinking, but Uttam Kumar s wonderful eyes let us imagine. The

pain is so great that the experience has torn his heart open - there must be so
me reason, some higher purpose for such intense pain.

***

We return to the present, to the country clinic, and remember that Uttam has bec
ome a simple country doctor who tends to the poor. He has given up whatever oppo
rtunities that first in your class might have given him. He has become the humble
servant of the God he once did not know.

Rina emerges from the infirmary, the signs of her drunken state still obvious. S
he approaches the Doctor to pay him something, and suddenly she recognizes him!
The two have not met since she shut the door on his love - that terrible day whe
n a part of both of them died. The horror of her present circumstances burns her
through and through - and she flees the hospital.

The theme song the couple sang in hope haunts Rina s thoughts. Suchitra is wonderf
ul playing at the whisky bottle. Rina can keep the oath, but life is unbearable
without Krishnendu - and so she drinks to forget. But after seeing him again, pe
rhaps there s not enough liquor in the world to help her forget the man she loves
heart and soul.

She cannot stay away from him and returns to the small hospital. The Doctor s room
is bare, sparsely furnished, with pictures of Jesus, the Indian saint Ramakrish
na, and the Bengali genius Rabindranath Tagore. The good doctor leads the life o
f an ascetic.

Rina reminds Krishnendu that he could have been a great and famous doctor. He sh
ould go home and resume his career. But our hero has become a believer and taken
an oath to serve God. While she has become a drunk who believes in nothing. Suc
hitra is quite convincing playing the hardened woman. She even brings a small bo
ttle of booze along with her to help her through the moment.

She ridicules him and he looks at her with absolute love. She ridicules him, say
ing, Don t be as a stone age man and look at everything as God! She s bitter, hard, an
d compelled to tell him her story.

The day after she left him, she had wanted to become a nun. Remember that Rina w
as a Christian. But when she went to her father and told him that she had broken
with Krishnendu and wanted to join her religion - the father told her that she h
ad no religion ! She is the illegitimate daughter of their Indian maid, she is a m
oment of weakness on the part of the English father who was secretly hoping to b
e rid of his mistake - meaning Rina. He admitted that he had even thought of kil
ling her to get rid of his sin !

That day Rina lost her temper and threatened her father. The Indian maid servant
had always been kind and loving to Rina - and now Rina demanded that the old ma
n marry her real mother. Stereotypically British, the father is coldly drinking
Scotch and in anger pulls out a gun. As the argument escalates, he fires wildly
and accidentally kills the maid, Rina s mother. Rina tells Krishnendu that her fat
her is in prison.

In one terrible day Rina s world

u because of his father and then
m/Krishnendu listens with loving
umstance, not even her rejection
for her. He offers her wisdom:

crashed down around her. First she lost Krishnend

she lost her mother because of her father. Utta
eyes. He still loves her. Neither time nor circ
of him can alter the love he feels in his heart

Rina, the human life, the source from which it is created, there is no cast there
. No religion. In every one of us equally God is present to be Self-Realized.

He smiles at her so lovingly. He knows the truth. Vasudeva sarvam iti. God is pr
esent in every man, woman and child - ubiquitous, waiting to be Recognized.

Rina remains unmoved, trapped in her pain. She swears that Christ is dead for he
r. And then, she sees her picture on the table next to his bed. She realizes tha
t he has never forgotten her, never given up hope. But the oath hangs over her l
ike a prison, the promise she made to his father - which Krishnendu knows nothin
g about. She cannot tell him. She leaves again.

***

Back at her army barracks, Rina heads straight for the whisky bottle. But the va
garies of war intrude on her misery and she must travel to a village to rescue a
n old woman who is blind and has been abandoned to die. Rina carries the old lad
y to her jeep and drives to the nearest field hospital - where as fate will have
it, once more our star-crossed lovers are thrown together. The good doctor Kris
hnendu has been called to the front lines to tend the wounded.

Destiny will not leave these two alone and both are shocked at seeing each other
. Krishnendu sees it as natural - he adores her. But Rina is bound by her promis
e to his father and runs out into the night, into the surrounding countryside wh
ich is being bombed by enemy planes flying overhead. Krishnendu follows her. Rin
a is frantic and in the ensuing chaos is wounded by one of the explosions. Uttam
/Krishnendu carries her unconscious back to the hospital.

***

Rina wakes in bed. She is alive and bandaged. The

tor has told her to take good care of his wife !
. Krishnendu comes into the room smiling, holding
his father admitting that he has been a old fool.
ases her from the terrible vow that has caused so

nurse informs her that the doc

Rina is a bit dazed and bewildered
a letter he has received from
He has misjudged Rina and rele
much misery.

Krishnendu hands Rina the letter, and she cries and cries. Life has been so crue
l. Krishnendu shines his loving smile down upon her tears. Trembling, she confes
ses her fears. After what she has done, how she has lived - can she find her wa
y back to peace? She says, I have lost everything - my religion, faith, affection
and love.

Slowly, deeply, lovingly, Uttam/Krishnendu assures her - You have lost nothing. Y
ou still have everything! He loves her unconditionally - no matter what!

***

In the last scene of the film we watch Krishnendu carry Rina in his arms towards
an ethereal sort of cathedral in the distant shadowy mist - which is appears as
a metaphor of hope, renewal and redemption. In the light of dawn, he will carry
her Home!

Krishnendu s love is eternal - just as the soul (Purusha/Atma) that dwells within
every man, woman and child waits lovingly, patiently for the temporal personalit
y self to recognize its true nature and come Home. The Supreme Self that dwells
within us all is always forgiving, always loving, and eternally present.

As Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita II.72:

Even if a man gains stable understanding, true perception, only during his very
last moments, his Self-Realization would still be of absolute significance - des
pite the fact that there is no time left for reshaping one s life.

- translation from Krishna Chaitanya/KK Nair s The Gita for Modern Man
, Delhi

Clarion Books