Do Bigha Zamin (1953)

Do Bigha Zamin (1953):
Where Life Withers Away
(Spoiler Alert)

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And so they lived happily ever after. Such stories happen only in cinema. Why?
Because in real life, such happy endings hardly ever occur. The cinematic movement that breaks away from the notion that cinema is merely cinema and nothing more—that shows reality as reality truly is—is called the neo-realist movement. It began in Italy. The master of this movement, Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine, The Bicycle Thief, Umberto D.—those who have seen them know how magnificent films can be made by faithfully capturing the social and economic conditions of the poor. There is no refuge in fantasy; what is shown are the various stories unfolding in the life around us. There is joy and sorrow. There is wealth and poverty. There is beauty and ugliness. Essentially, the neo-realist film movement is about bringing the camera’s focus down to the dust of the streets. Amateur artists would act on city streets, in alleys, in slums, or in remote villages. The daily moral and economic crises, the harsh and dark aspects of life—all these become the subject matter of this movement. It shows defeat, struggle, poverty, exploitation, despair, suffering. The ending of the film is not as the audience wishes, but as life truly is. One of the most successful Hindi films of this genre is ‘Do Bigha Zamin,’ made by Bimal Roy in 1953, exactly five years after The Bicycle Thief. Two years later, Satyajit Ray also walked the same path. Like Bimal Roy, inspired by The Bicycle Thief, he created the neo-realist classic ‘Pather Panchali.’

Let me tell the story. Shambhu is a poor farmer. Two bighas of land are his only asset. With his wife Paro, son Kanhaiya, and father, he has a happy household. The local zamindar wants to buy Shambhu’s land to establish a chemical plant. Shambhu refuses. The zamindar then demands repayment of some old debts. The matter eventually goes to court. The court gives Shambhu three months to repay the debt. If he fails, his two bighas of land will be confiscated in favor of the zamindar. Hoping to earn money, Shambhu goes to Calcutta with his son. Paro stays in the village to care for her elderly father-in-law. In the city, Shambhu pulls a rickshaw, Kanhaiya polishes shoes. Meanwhile, Paro collects vegetables from muddy waters and works as a laborer at a construction site. Through countless obstacles and hardships, the three of them struggle to save money for the debt. Eventually, in desperation, Shambhu gets injured while pulling his rickshaw too fast, Kanhaiya begins stealing, and Paro, coming to the city in search of her husband and son, falls into the clutches of a rogue and gets hit by a car while trying to escape. Shambhu spends all their savings on his wife’s treatment. The three return to the village empty-handed. Unable to repay the debt within the stipulated time, he loses his two bighas of land.

When you search for the greatest Indian films of all time, ‘Do Bigha Zamin’ appears among the top ten. Bimal Roy is among India’s greatest directors ever. This 2 hour and 11 minute film captures the daily life of poor villagers and the living conditions of urban slum dwellers. It is an exquisite portrayal of the social and economic face of poverty, as well as the honesty and dishonesty of the poor. This film doesn’t save Shambhu’s land from the zamindar; this is not a film about making Shambhu win. This film is an honest portrayal of the lifestyle, psychology, and struggles of poor people in both village and city. The realistic picture of life that emerged in this 1953 film remains equally relevant today. That is why the film has achieved classic status. Watching the film leaves certain messages etched in the mind. Many scenes from this film are worth remembering forever. For instance:

The sacrifices that poor farmer Shambhu makes for his family are memorable. He must somehow arrange the debt money within three months. Yet in doing so, even in extreme poverty and hardship, he doesn’t sacrifice his honesty, dedication, or values. The eight annas he earned pulling the rickshaw for a sick neighbor—he puts it in the neighbor’s hand. Even if he had kept the money, the neighbor would never have known. Shambhu’s sense of self-respect is particularly striking in the film.

The rickshaw Shambhu pulls is not a pedal rickshaw but one pulled by running. When he races against a horse, pulling his rickshaw for extra fare, the director shows him and the horse in the same frame. Shambhu’s rickshaw wheel comes off, he tumbles onto the road and gets injured. We cry for Shambhu then, and the horse’s suffering also automatically comes to mind.

In the film’s first half hour, we see that though the village farmers are poor, they are happy with little. They are accustomed to living simple lives with modest means, surrounded by family. In contrast, life in the city slums is dark, merciless, barbaric, and without compassion. Urban merchants are devouring the villages. In the name of urbanization, they’re setting up factories in villages; black smoke and pollution are stealing the village greenery, and the simple villagers are disappearing. Even in 1953, Bimal Roy had shown us our future, pointing it out with his finger.

A person’s outward persona doesn’t reveal the inner self. The village zamindar speaks softly, seems kind on the surface, but the person inside is a scoundrel—greedy, selfish, merciless. Meanwhile, the slum landlady in the city appears quarrelsome, ugly, ruthless, and angry from the outside, yet her inner person is exactly the opposite.

When Paro goes to her neighbor to have a letter written to her husband, her embarrassed shrinking at thinking what to write and how to address him—seeing this scene reminds us of woman’s eternal shy nature. Some simple, love-filled scenes between Shambhu and Paro touch the heart.

When poor people become desperate, their character may sometimes falter. When Kanhaiya realizes that even together, father and son cannot save enough money, and time is running out, the thought of repaying the debt with stolen money comes to his mind. He joins a pickpocket. Behind this is not criminal tendency, but poverty.

When Shambhu is sick, lying in bed, the two boys who polish shoes beside Kanhaiya decide that from now on, they will each give Shambhu two paisa daily for his father’s treatment. They too are poor, yet their courage, generosity, and humanity in standing by Shambhu for his sick father’s treatment moves us.

When the three return to the village, they see their two bighas of land are gone, and work on building the chemical plant is proceeding at full speed. Standing beyond the boundary fence, they’re crying. At the moment of leaving, Shambhu turns back, bends down, and picks up something. The guard comes shouting, asking what are you taking? Shambhu says, nothing, brother, nothing. The guard grabs Shambhu’s collar and says, show me what you took! Shambhu opens his hand. Just some soil from the two bighas falls to the ground. What must be abandoned, all of it must be abandoned. Even the right to take a last memento doesn’t remain with the poor.

‘Do Bigha Zamin’ wins the International Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It also wins the Filmfare Award, National Film Award, and Karlovy Vary International Film Festival award. The main beauty of this film is not its extraordinary plot, but the skill in properly utilizing that plot. Salil Chowdhury’s story ‘Rickshawala’ is very simple; the director’s achievement lies in the artistry of bringing out the distinct characteristics and psychology of the story’s characters. Even in extremely critical situations, Shambhu remained firm in his moral position; Kanhaiya’s efforts and restlessness to help his father; Paro’s yearning to see her husband and son—the blossoming of all these is deeply moving. The comparative portrayal of urban and rural life is the soul of this film. Villages will break to become cities, zamindars will cause suffering to the poor, yet human relationships and harmony will endure. Bimal Roy took the film’s title from Rabindranath Tagore’s poem ‘Dui Bigha Jomi.’ The theme of the poem and the theme of the film are the same…………

Only two bighas were my land, all else lost to debt.

The master said, ‘Listen Upen, I shall buy this land.’

I said, ‘You are the landowner, land has no end.

Look at me—at most I have space to die.’

I hear the king say, ‘My dear fellow, you know I’ve made a garden

If I get these two bighas, length and breadth will be equal—

That must be given.’