The life and times of Dadamuni

As today is the birthday of Dadamuni of hindi films, Ashok Kumar,it is worth talking about his path-breaking movie, Achhoot Kanya.It was released in 1936, 75 years ago, highlighting the menace of castism in India.

Among the early super-hits in the Bombay film industry, the film deals with the social position of Dalit girls and is considered a reformist period-piece.The film was one of several successful Bombay Talkies collaborations between Franz Osten, Niranjan Pal, Himanshu Rai, and their leading lady, Devika Rani.

Music is by Saraswati Devi and lyrics by J.S. Kashyap. The movie stars Ashok Kumar (cast after the original hero had eloped with the producer's wife and leading lady) and Devika Rani (the producer's wife who decided to come back) in the lead roles.

A circular story, told in flashback, in which eternal repetition is only interrupted by death in the form of a relentlessly linear railway engine. The film opens at a railway crossing where a man is about to kill his wife when the narrative spins into the past via a song. The central story is of the unhappy love affair between Kasturi (Devika Rani), the Harijan (Untouchable) daughter of the railway level-crossing guard Dukhia (Prasad), and Pratap (Kumar), the Brahmin son of the grocer Mohan (Pithawala).

At first, rumour and mob violence are deployed to lethal effect in order to maintain a 'traditional', oppressive morality. Later, when the main protagonists are about to conform and marry selected partners, rumour and maliciousness again intervene to trigger renewed violence until the on-rushing train of fate stops the strife.