1981, Hindi, Television Film, YouTube, IMBD 8/10, Directed By Satyajit Ray
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRpaPV3QayY
Categorical depiction of untouchability, distinct from the abstract versions we are familiar in the 21st century mediums, that ends with a tone of a sharp cynicism.
Sadgati, meaning deliverance or salvation, based on a short story by Munshi Premchand, is a story of a Tanner Dhukiya (Om Puri) and his wife Jhuria (Smita Patil) who try to invite the Temple priest to fix a date for his adolescent daughter’s wedding. The priest extracts hard labor from him in exchange for his visit and Dhukiya who had just recovered from a fever and had nothing to eat that morning, dies while chopping log on the priest’s command. The priest is forced to remove the dead body himself, from his backyard, as his neighbors complain of inconvenience to pass the house to fetch water.
The slender Smita patil and the deep rumbling voiced Om Puri valiantly express in their eyes the emotions of the characters of Dhukiya and Jhuria. The character’s gullibility are illustrated with just simple gestures like when Jhuria tries to repeat grocery list so she doesn’t forget and when the shopkeeper errs in repeating her list, she giggles naively. The helpless life of the down trodden is effortless showcased as she inquires her husband of his giddiness but she has no choice other than standing there looking at the plate of food that her husband leaves back without eating as he had to rush to see the priest.
The suppression is unconsciously outlined through the inability of the low born to defend for themselves in many instances, like when Dhukiya apologies to have entered the house of the priest, when he squats keeping mum without asking for an axe until he had been spoken to and lets himself to be exploited with unfamiliar job of chopping logs.
When Jhuria wails in distress, at the doors of the priest accusing him of exploiting her husband and killing him, none answer her. The subjugation in the name of caste system is reiterated.
When the priest is left with no choice other than removing the corpse of Dhukiya himself as the people refuse to carry, he inhumanely ties a rope to the ankle of the corpse using a stick to lift his limb and drags it to dump it near the skeleton of rotting animals. This act is what the writer contemptuously attributes to in the title – the belief of Salvation (Mokhsa), for Dhukiya, as his dead body is handled by the ‘so-called’ holy man himself.
Neither an ounce of exaggeration in the emotions nor any exciting events, yet the film translates the intensity which evidently speaks for the modus operandi of the eminent director Satyajit Ray. The story ends with the priest sprinkling holy water on the place where Dhukiya lay dead, leaving the viewers to ponder on what salvation is.
A cringe worthy watch as these caste discrimination hasn’t died down and vigorously thrives in many educated households even today.