Sarvasakshi

aka The Omniscient 1978 135’ b&w Marathi d/p/st/co-sc Ramdas Phutane pc Giriraj Pics co-sc Meena Chandavarkar lyr Viroba, Aarti Prabhu, Indira Sant, Shanta Shelke c Sharad Navle m Bhaskar Chandavarkar lp Smita Patil, Jairam Hardikar, Anjali Paingankar, Vijay Joshi, Datta Bhatt, Vilas Rakte, Nilu Phule, Ram Nagarkar, Leela Gandhi, Kamini Bhatia, Shankar Nag, Dilip Kulkarni, Ashok Joshi, Rajan Kalekar, Suresh More

Phutane, a former journalist, art teacher, poet and actor, had produced Patel’s Saamna (1975), inaugurating New Indian Cinema productions in Marathi. This is his debut feature and, like Palekar’s Aakriet (1981), it deals with mystical rituals calling for human sacrifice in the context of the notorious Manwat murders in Maharashtra. The idealistic schoolteacher Ravi (Hardikar) and his wife Rekha (Paingankar) move to a village and come up against local superstition. When Rekha becomes pregnant, she has a premonition of death. A bhagat (witch-doctor) confirms the premonition and suggests a human sacrifice to stave off death. Rekha dies in childbirth. Ravi’s problems are further heightened when he is arrested for the murder of one of the bhagat’s ritual victims. In jail, he has a premonition of another sacrifice and is able to tip off the police who arrest the bhagat.

Film