Salute to two legends

Sagina poster / Wikipedia

Had they still been alive, filmmaker Tapan Sinha would have completed a century run on October 2 while on December 11, Dilip Kumar would have turned 102. Neither of the two legends are with us today, but their 1970 Bengali film, Sagina Mahato, shot in unvarnished black-and-white, remains as a reminder of the magic they created together. 

The 140-minute film is based on the labour movement of 1942-'43, narrated through fictional characters, exposes how the Communist leaders were working hand-in-glove with the British despots to stifle unrest amongst workers by setting them up against their own. Written by journalist Gour Kishore Ghosh under the pen name Rupdarshi, the short story by the same name was first published in Desh, on January 18, 1958.

Politics in cinema 

In an interview to the same Bengali magazine in 1991, Sinha informed journalist Robi Basu that he had been approached by Hemen Ganguly to helm a film for him after his 1967 directorial, Haatey Bazarey, won the President's Silver Medal for the 'Second Best Film of the Year'. It was also adjudged 'Best Film' at the 13th Asia Pacific Film Festival and 'Best Indian Film' at the 13" Annual Bengal Film Journalists' Association (BFJA) Awards. 

When the director suggested adapting Ghosh's Sagina Mahato, Ganguly readily gave his consent and collaborated with JK Kapur, filmmaker, social activist and restaurateur (he started the Copper Chimney chain of restaurants in 1972), to produce the film which is now regarded as a cult film. 

Sinha later admitted to Basu that he had read the scathing short story long ago, but only thought of bringing it to the screen a decade later to express his growing disenchantment with Leftist politics in his home state with some local politicians even alleging that Hatey Bazarey had been financed by the CIA. 

The period political drama follows the life of a labourer in Siliguri, North Bengal, who dares to stand up against the autocracy of his bosses. He is befriended by a Communist and manipulated into becoming a labour welfare leader and alienated from his own. Eventually, Sagina is made to stand on a mock trial in a jungle court as a traitor to the cause of his comrades, a noose literally hanging over his head. 

Why Di̇li̇p Kumar? 

While many would have thought Bengal's matinee idol, Uttam Kumar, would have been the inevitable choice for Sagina, both Sinha and Ganguly agreed that they needed an actor who was not a Bengali. It was his producer who suggested Dilip Kumar's name. 

The actor had made a special appearance as a jailor in Jaganath Chattopadhyay's 1966 Bengali film, Pari, co-starring Dharmendra, Abhi Bhattacharya and Pranati Bhattacharya. Ganguly even accompanied his director to Mumbai where a meeting was set up with the actor through a common friend. Dilip Kumar who had a special liking for the works of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Rabindranath Tagore and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, loved the script. 

He called the gentle, like-minded Sinha to his bungalow the next day to discuss it in more detail and was delighted when the director suggested casting his wife, Saira Banu, opposite him. Last year, in an Instagram post on July 16, Saira Banu admitted that Sagina is one of her much-loved films. 

"It is based on the true story of the labour movement. Sagina, a factory labourer...is an honest, aggressive and loveable character, who was the first to fight against the tyranny of the British bosses in the tea gardens of Northern-Eastern India. Sagina becomes a Welfare Officer and brings about justice," she shared, recalling that her 'sahib' and the director had become good friends and during the outdoor shoot in Gayabari, Dilip Kumar had set up a badminton court in the garden where the entire team would play together in the evenings after pack-up. Later, they cosily huddle together in the house to sing and joke. 

Racing with the train 

She picked out her favourite scene from the film where Sagina, a robust, outgoing man, bored and suffocated from sitting in his office all day, steps out for a breath of fresh air and spotting the toy train puffing down, exuberantly matches his speed with that of the passing train. 

"I think it is one of Sahib's most spellbinding and enthralling performances," she exulted. While talking about this particular shot, Sinha had revealed that he had urged Dilip Kumar to shed his method acting and the thespian had obeyed, jumping joyfully like a child as the train passed, the moment captured on camera for posterity. 

While Sinha set his film in a different period, the parallels to more contemporary politics, like the P.C. Joshi and B.T. Ranadive factions of the CPI in the forties, were easy to discern, and as he confides in the Desh interview, during the shooting itself, they began to receive threats from certain political parties. After getting censor clearance, he learnt that they had decided to stall the release by picketing in front of the theaters playing the film. 

To appease them, the filmmaker organized a special screening and was encouraged when he wowed some of the young extremist leaders, who on the day of the release, followed Sinha around, forming a protective ring around him when anyone walked up to discuss the film, warning him that not everyone could be trusted.

However, the director's biggest validation was when Sagina Mahato bagged the Afro-Asian Award at the Moscow Film Festival, giving it a stamp of approval from Communists worldwide even while the Lal Salaam brigade back home continued to glower. The film was a huge hit, going on to celebrate a diamond jubilee run and picking up five BFJA Awards, including Best Actor (Dilip Kumar), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Anil Chatterjee), Best Art Direction (Suniti Mitra), Best Music (Tapan Sinha) and Best Male Playback Singer (Anup Ghoshal).

There was a Hindi version four years later. Simply called Sagina, it was made on a bigger budget and was in colour, but it couldn't recreate the success of the original. Sinha has confessed that he was not happy with either Zindagi Zindagi, the 1972 remake of his 1959 Bengali film Khoniker Atithi, nor Sagina.

"Those two years in Bombay were not too fruitful. Even after returning to Calcutta, I failed to recreate the old mood. I made a film with Madhabi (Mukherjee) based on Prafulla Roy's story Andhar Periye (Crossing the Darkness). I was not satisfied with the film," he shared in the Desh interview. 

However, the original remains a classic and incidentally introduced another writer-actor to the film industry. Dilip Kumar saw him in a play, Taash Ke Patey, which Kader Khan had also written and directed, and was so impressed he came backstage and offered the actor a role in his next film whose shooting was starting the next day. Khan played Anupam Dutt in Sagina Mahato and went on to become as big a legend as his mentor.