Bangarwadi

1995 124’ col/scope Marathi d/co-sc/co-dial Amol Palekar pc NFDCDoordarshan st/co-sc/co-dial Vyankatesh Madgulkar based on his novel co-sc/co-dial Chitra Palekar c Debu Deodhar m Vanraj Bhatia lp Chandrakant, Adhishree Atre, Sushma Deshpande, Chandrakant Kulkarni, Nandu Madhav, Sunil Ranade, Nagesh Bhosle, Hiralal Jain, Kishore Kadam, Upendra Limaye

Palekar’s second Marathi film after Aakriet (1981) revisits the classic Marathi tradition of rural melodrama associated with the writer Madgulkar, a genre central to the regionalist imaginary of post-Independence Maharashtra. Set in 1939 in the formerly princely state of Aundh, a young school teacher (Kulkarni) is posted to the hamlet of Bangarwadi, noted for its ‘criminal’ tribe of Ramoshis and its perennial drought problems. The teacher introduces modernity via a school as well as concepts such as the values of education and communal harmony. However the draught strikes and the villagers leave, but the school teacher stays behind. Chandrakant Mandhre, the noted Marathi star, plays the village headman.

Film