Andhi Gali'

aka Blind Alley aka Dead End 1984 152’ col Hindi d/sc/m Buddhadev Dasgupta pc K.B.S. Films st Dibyendu Palit’s novel Ghar Bari dial/lyr Gulzar c Kamal Nayak lp Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Deepti Naval, M.K. Raina, Anil Chatterjee, Mahesh Bhatt, Satya Bannerjee, Shyamanand Jalan, Anuradha Tandon

The final part of the director’s trilogy dealing with contemporary middle-class Bengali politics (Dooratwa, 1978; Grihajuddha, 1982) is his first film in Hindi. Set in Calcutta in the early 70s, the central figure is a left activist and school teacher, Hemanta. Narrowly escaping being murdered by the police, Hemanta finds his political organisation in disarray and flees to Bombay where he leads a quiet life though his nerves are still shattered by his Calcutta experiences. Through a friend, Rakesh, Hemanta meets Jaya and they marry. To help raise money to buy a flat, Jaya reluctantly becomes a model for advertisement photographs. Obsessed with the desire to secure a middle-class lifestyle, Hemanta forces Jaya to take on demeaning photographic assignments and, to impose his will on her, he rapes her. Jaya commits suicide and Hemanta finds himself facing the police again.

Film