Ratandeep

Bhowal Sanyasi
Two years ago I had read review of a book dealing with the Bhowal Sanyasi Case, published in the India Today and the Outlook Mag.

I d’t remember the title or name of the publisher or of the author. I missplaced both the periodicals. I am keen to read it , but disinclined to step into a book shop without knowing these details. If any of you know of this book, please let me know.

Some of you may not be familiar with the Bhowal Sanyasi case. I was in my early twenties when I saw a Hindi movie based on this story in Bellary. Released in 1954, it was a beautiful film in which Abhi Bhatcharya acts as the hero. My journalist colleague Mr Tekur Krishna Murthy, representing The Hindu in Bellary used to tell me that that details of the Bhowal Sanyasi case, related to an incident in the British Governed State of Calcutta, were being serialized in the Modern Review a reputed weekly published from Calcutta in English.

It was about an impostor. A young Asst. Station Master in a small station one morning had an unpleasant assignment of getting removed the body of an unidentified sanyasi from a Railway Compartment in this way side station. After panchayanama, the body will be disposed of. The Asst Station Master(Abhi Bhattacharya) finds a diary in the sanyasi's pocket, and comes to know that he was married, as was the custom then, to a tiny tot belonging to a rich Jamindar family in Calcutta. After marriage he goes to the Himalays and becomes an ascetic. In between the wedlock and the subsequent death there was a considerable time lag and Abhi impersonates as one who had gone on wandering and says he had come for a reunion. The Jamindar family takes him for his word , but the conscience in him pricks constantly and he could not stand its drilling, so much so he reveals the truth. The girl dies and Dewan wants to shoot him , but girl’s mother(Durga Khote) asks Dewan not to embark on a vengeful venture saying “Kyanahi karsakthata, leken kutch nayi kiya(What he could have done he did not to do anything, meaning that he could have lived as her husband without the world knowing, but he did not do so) .He does not even touch her.

In the end in the film Abhi lits the pyre on which the body of the girl he wanted to marry by fraud lies. But the Editor of the Film India, Baburao Patel, who was all praise for the deft handling of a sensitive subject by the director (whose name I cannot recall, is it Debiki Bose ?)objects to Abhi lighting the pyre saying he had no right to do so. I remember, the director recalled the prints and cut that sequence.

Surely this case (1925) would have been published in the Law Journal. My request is if any one of you know about the recent book please let me know by way of comment or e-mail : krishnavattam@yahoo.co.in , krishnavattam@gmail.com.