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Upahar — The Unwanted Gift

October 3, 2024 | By A K Nanda

Tapan Sinha’s Upahar looks at Calcutta’s evolving society in post-independence India, caught between an emerging liberal outlook and age-old prejudices through the story of a miserly landlord, his abused daughter, and his compassionate tenants.

Film booklet cover of Upahar (Source – Sounak Gupta)

Upahar or gift is usually given with love. But it also can have another side — a gift that is unwanted. Tapan Sinha’s Upahar goes beyond what we typically think of as “gift”. It delves into the gift of relationships, of courage, of affection and love as also material gifts that, compared to the unquantifiable ones, seem of much less value.

Ashok (Uttam Kumar) — a professor at the University comes househunting to Kangali Babu (Kanu Bandopadhyay), a hard core miser who is willing to rent out the upper floor of his house. The opening scene places the film in its context — the setting is of a middle class, rather rundown house, its walls cluttered with old photos and bric-a-brac. Kangali Babu (an appropriate name for his current situation as Kangali means penniless) looks haggard — unkempt hair, worn out torn and badly patched up kurta, nailing an old shoe on his little desk.

Ashok gingerly sits on a chair, because the other makeshift chair in the room looks to have been put together with discarded wood pieces and looks everything else but a chair.

In the first five minutes, the film is neatly placed in the context—a city where finding a house with decent living conditions is a challenge even for a respectable professor, and where every penny matters for a middle-class family.

Upahar revolves around Ashok — an educated, considerate professor who has a beautiful, educated wife, Neela (Manju De), and a simpleton servant Bholanath (Jahar Roy); and his landlord — a cantankerous, miserly houseowner who has one daughter Krishna (Sabitri Chatterjee) and the house which he claims he has built brick by brick with a lot of care.

The irritable and nasty Kangali Babu might not have given his new tenants a warm welcome, but that is more than compensated by his friendly and energetic daughter Krishna, who earns the affection of Neela within a few hours with her helpful nature. For Krishna, on the other hand, the pleasant couple brings fresh air to her claustrophobic home. She clings to Neela, parched for love and compassion, which she never got from her father. The other relief in her life is her young neigbour Sunil (Nirmal Kumar), a bright young man finishing his MA who loves her and steals a chat or two of feigned urgency furtively with her via the rear window.

Kanu Bandyopadhyay as Kangali Babu

The miserliness of Kangali Babu drives everyone up the wall. He is ungrateful, selfish and always on the lookout to squeeze out favours this way or that and get something extra out of his tenants — be it getting Bholanath to do his chores or Ashok to help him with money. His relentless negativity makes him appear as almost a flat character.

Krishna’s plight in the hands of her merciless father drives home her miserable condition. For food she gets only rice and boiled potatoes, for clothes she has two torn saris. Neela tries to help her in any way possible – sending her food items from her kitchen or lending her saris. But Krishna gives them away to her father, who shamelessly eats it all without asking if she has had her meal and asks for more goodies every day. Bholanath, irked no end by Kangali Babu’s demands, reports all this to Neela.

Through their word and day-to-day behavior, the couple gradually emerges as symbols of resilience and adaptability. Their journey from being negotiators to occupants on the first floor is a testament to their education and fair-mindedness. As the story unfolds, their relationship with Krishna, deepens as they navigate their journey of knowing each other, creating a mutually beneficial bond of trust, sympathy, and friendship. They speak to one another so often as if they are part of one family.

Sabitri Chatterjee as Krishna

Krishna, who has to look up to others for every little thing of happiness in her life, becomes an inseparable part of the couple’s world. Ashok even convinces Kangali Babu to broach the subject of Krishna and Sunil’s marriage with Sunil’s father (Chhabi Biswas). But things hit a roadblock when Sunil’s father demands money for marriage expenses.

That Kangali Babu is not only an obsessive miser but also an incorrigibly cruel man is proven once more when he sells off Krishna to a mentally ill groom for money. A tip-off from the groom’s friend helps Ashok somehow stop the wedding in time but by then, a heartbroken Sunil has left the city for Bombay for a job interview fixed by his uncle.

This is a critical point in the story. Sunil, not willing to let Krishna get married off to someone else, pleads her to elope with him. Caught between the hope of escape to a better life and the fear of social stigma, Krishna looks for advice from Neela.

Though an educated and liberal woman who calls the shots at home, Neela cannot escape her middle-class morality. Knowing well that only doom is destined for Krishna in this house, she still stops Krishna from eloping with Sunil. For Neela, social acceptance of a marriage is more important than love. She knows what she is doing is perhaps not fair to Krishna, yet she is unable to drop the shackles of ‘society will not accept this’. Krishna thus loses both Sunil and a possible release from the daily torture.

Upahar - Nirmal Kumar Sabitri Chatterjee Manju De

Sunil pleads Krishna to elope with him but Neela stops her from fear of social stigma

The story written by Sailajanand Mukhopadhyay mirrors the newly emerging society after India’s independence from British imperial rule. Ashok can be considered as the voice of hope, perhaps Tapan Sinha’s own comment. He dreams of cultivating the youth to be free thinkers and take the country to a new level of social practice to build a new society. The youth is the nerve centre of a country, he says.

Neela shares Ashok’s dream but in the core of her heart, she symbolises society at the crossroads — on the one hand, it is educated, trying to be liberal and progressive. On the other hand, it still sticks to age-old prejudices and society-driven morals.

Ashok dreams of cultivating the youth to be free thinkers

Ashok’s vision of the new, free-from-prejudices, emerging youth is reflected in Sunil. He is a scholarship holder, an award-winning debater of the University and holds the promise of growing as a forward-looking human being. He has no qualms of being in love with a girl of an impoverished father. He objects to his father’s demands for marriage expenses and is ready to take Krishna away from the hell hole she has to endure everyday even if that means taking on social rejection.

When Krishna’s marriage with the mentally unstable fellow is stopped right in time, Kangali Babu blames Ashok and Neela for it. His unstoppable jibes makes it difficult for them to continue to stay in the house. As they start looking for another place, Krishna pleads with Neela not to leave her alone. Things come to a head when Kangali Babu finds Krishna going upstairs to meet Neela despite his warnings. He mercilessly beats his daughter, as Neela helplessly watches.

Unable to bear the humiliation and abuse, Krishna runs away from home and meets with an accident. Not finding his daughter, Kangali Babu then realises what he has done. But it is too late. He searches frantically but she is nowhere to be found.

Meanwhile Sunil, restless and depressed, is unable to get the job in Bombay. Chastised by his uncle, he leaves home and wanders around in search of a job in an unfamiliar city, finally ending up with a measly clerical job in distant Assam from a Marwari trader. He has no choice but to accept it. This is another face of the society that comes forth starkly – the big bad city that has no empathy for an educated young man desperately looking for a job.

Kangali Babu dies regretting the injustice he had done to Krishna

One truly understands the value of something only after having lost it. Pining for his lost daughter, Kangali Babu dies, perhaps regretting the abuse he had meted out to her all through his life, in return for her kindness.

It is only after he dies that Krishna opens the forbidden storeroom to which no one except Kangali Babu had access. Everyone is shocked to discover that the dirty, dingy room stores a huge collection of gold, jewellery, and cash that the miser Kangali Babu had collected all his life and stashed away in a massive trunk.

Krishna’s grief is beyond any other pain she might have felt. As a 10-year-old she had lost her mother and brother as her father could not or did not pay for their treatment, while all along he had so much wealth. She had only known pain, deprivation, humiliation and abuse from her father, who had pretended that the measly rent from the upper floor was his only income. A life of untold misery all these years was so unnecessary and self-inflicted — the realisation shocks Ashok and Neela as well.

Upahar — the gift, can be looked at in two ways — the gift of affection from Ashok and Neela to Krishna and the gift of a king’s fortune from Kangali Babu to his daughter which is discovered only after he dies. It is his upahar in his absentia rolling down to his daughter whom he abused to no end. Hence, when Krishna gets this huge bounty of wealth, all she can do now is hate it.

Upahar - Uttam Kumar Sabitri Chatterjee Manju De

Krishna reacts with intense hatred towards the ‘gift’ of wealth left behind by her father as Neela and Ashok try to comfort her

Tapan Sinha uses a straight, uncomplicated narrative structure. The feeling of a confined home space is finely brought out with midshots and closeups, conveying a feeling of a limited space. Most of the film is shot inside the house — the lower floor of a dingy room and courtyard where Kangali Babu lives and the upper floor occupied by Neela and Ashok which is more airy and aesthetically done. Uttam Kumar is given a pair of glasses to look like a scholarly professor. The worn-out, crumpled sari of Krishna, the patched shirt of Kangali Babu, his cheap, round, wired glasses, and uncombed hair, the cluttered shelves, the unpainted walls — all these work towards creating a feeling of being constantly in dire straits.

Kangali Babu’s unstoppable jibes make life difficult for Ashok and Neela

As the obnoxious Kangali Babu, Kanu Bandopadhyay delivers a remarkable performance, irking the audience with his inhumane miserliness and abusive behaviour. One must remember that Upahar was released the same year as Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali (1955), where Kanu Bandopadhyay played the unforgettable Harihar. And in the same year, he played the mystic Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa in the film Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna (1955) — a role that required him to portray devotion, spirituality, calmness and compassion in every frame. One can arguably say, few if any, have been able to match his portrayal of Sri Ramakrishna — be it in appearance or performance. One can only marvel at the range of histrionic talent of this underrated actor to have delivered three diametrically opposite roles in the films released in the same year.

Tulsi Chakraborty and Rajlokkhi in Upahar

Manju De is her spontaneous self in her role as Neela. Sabitri Chatterjee, as Krishna, delivers a fine performance, so does Nirmal Kumar as Sunil. There are some cameos that worth the mention. Chhabi Biswas as Sunil father exemplifies the middle class which doesn’t have the money to keep up with the social traditions but can’t ignore it either. Or Rajlokkhi, playing the aunt of the mentally unstable groom portrays the naked face of the rich who is trying to force her nephew to marry Krishna so that she can get house help for free forever.

A gift in acknowledgment of a relation between one person and another tells the story of both the giver and the receiver at a given time and as time passes by, the reminiscences of the event and the person become distant but not wholly forgotten. For Krishna, the gift from her father would forever remain a thorny reminder of how different her life could have been.

Click Tapan Sinha@100

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About the Author

A K Nanda (2 Posts)

A Fulbright Fellow, seasoned journalist and editor, A K Nanda had a long career in writing and editing, working in the areas of research and analysis in economic studies, population studies, corporate management and accountancy, to name a few. He lives in Delhi and spends his time now reading books on philosophy, spirituality and literature and answering the unending questions of his teenaged granddaughter.
All Posts of A K Nanda

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One thought on “Upahar — The Unwanted Gift”

Anuradha Warrier October 6, 2024 at 2:46 am

What an insightful view of a fabulous film. I watched this years ago, when DD showed it on a Sunday afternoon. I’ve always wished I knew the language because I’m sure I missed much of the nuance.

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