''Tahader Katha'' () is a 1992 Indian

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

-language

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by Budhhadeb Dasgupta, starring

Mithun Chakraborty Mithun Chakraborty (born Gouranga Chakraborty; 16 June 1950) is an Indian actor, producer and politician who predominantly worked in Hindi and Bengali language films. He is a former Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament. He is the recipient of three ...

, who won the 1993

National Film Awards for Best Actor National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

for the film, while the film won the

National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Bengali The National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Bengali is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India. It is one of severa ...

Plot

Shibnath (played by

) is a freedom fighter in the

Indian independence movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947. The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged ...

. The film starts when, following the independence of India, Shibnath is released from prison after eleven years of incarceration for murdering a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

officer. Shibnath spent a part of his term in the prison asylum. In the journey back home, Shibnath is accompanied by one of his comrades, Bipin Gupta (played by

Dipankar De Dipankar Dey ( bn, দীপঙ্কর দে) (born 5 July 1944) is an Indian actor in the Bengali film industry. He has worked in many movies as hero, villain and character artist. He starred in Ray's ''Jana Aranya'' (''The Middleman'', ...

)—now a successful businessman and an aspiring politician in independent

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. Shibnath experiences the aftermath of Partition of India (India was partitioned in Republic of India and

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

in 1947, at the time of independence), with his own family becoming refugees, and his ancestral village now belonging to a separate nation of

East Pakistan East Pakistan was a Pakistani province established in 1955 by the One Unit Policy, renaming the province as such from East Bengal, which, in modern times, is split between India and Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Myanmar, wi ...

. With the help of Bipin Gupta, his family now resides in rural

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...

. Once cutting a formidable figure as a virile and courageous freedom fighter crusading for a united and independent Bengal to drive away the British, Shibnath now stands in stark contrast: a fragile, fragmented shell of his former self as he awkwardly hobbles along an unpaved road through the countryside, stopping frequently along the way to relieve himself in the woods, unable to control even his own bodily functions (undoubtedly the autonomic legacy resulting from years of physical torture and inhumane treatment that he sustained while in police custody). Shibnath's wife, Hemangini, urges him to make ally with Bipin who is willing to capitalize on Shibnath's legendary reputation for patriotism, by asking to accompany him in electoral campaigns. In exchange, Bipin is ready to arrange Shibnath the job of a school master. However, Shibnath remains disillusioned and mystified by the life that now lies before him away from his beloved—and irretrievably lost—homeland. Unable to abandon his crushed idealism and put his devastated past behind him, he withdraws further away from family and former colleagues, retreating into the tenuous company of his own fractured and haunted memories.

Cast

*Anashua Mujumdar *

*Subrata Nandy *Deboshri Bhattacharya *Ashok Mukherjee

References

External links

* 1992 films 1992 drama films Bengali-language Indian films Indian drama films Films directed by Buddhadeb Dasgupta Films set in the partition of India Films featuring a Best Actor National Award-winning performance Best Bengali Feature Film National Film Award winners 1990s Bengali-language films National Film Development Corporation of India films {{1990s-Bengali-film-stub