When Satyajit Ray first met Bollywood

In 1962, after finishing "Kanchenjunga" set in colourful Darjeeling featuring an aristocratic society, Ray plunged into the black & white (in both senses) world of taxi drivers, smugglers & kept women in his "Abhijan." He wanted Waheeda Rehman for the main female role, but her usual compensation was equal to the whole budget of the Ray film! However, she agreed for a lesser amount & the film was made. Ray himself says "The film was a tremendous success, bigger even in the suburbs than before. It was an all-round box-office success." However, film critic & fellow film maker Chidananda Das Gupta (Aparna Sen's father) grumbled that the film was banal & Soumitra Chaterjee was miscast as the taxi driver.

The hero is a misogynistic Rajput Narsingh, proud of his ancestry, though fallen on bad times. He accidentally meets a very pious but fully unscrupulous Marwari smuggler, (with a keep named Gulabi) who recognising his driving skills & courage, wants to use him for his drug smuggling activities. He helps him with a loan, & when Narsingh returns the loan, refuses to accept it by quoting Sri Ramakrishna, "Money is mud & Mud is money!" Later, the Marwari offers him a partnership in his transport company, again quoting Sri Ramakrishna in reverse, (like the devil quoting the scripture) saying "You are a young man & will get both money & women with this!" (Ray had designed the covers for a 4 volume biography of Sri Ramakrishna in Bengali.)

The film is replete with car races (Narsingh's taxi being a 1930 Chrysler), racing with trains, buses, fisticuffs & even two song & dance numbers, one in a tent cinema & one a private one by Gulabi for Narsingh! All in all, a good entertainer made with the impeccable Ray technique.