Remembering Bimal Roy the master of Indian humanist cinema on his 60th death anniversary on 8 January. It’s fitting to explore the political irony of Parakh, a film released in 1960 that quietly extends his legacy beyond the shadows of poverty and protest. Although Roy ’s influences from Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin and Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves are often invoked even as discussing Do Bigha Zameen released in 1953 or Bandini released in 1963 Parakh reveals a subtler evolution, a shift into political satire that probes the fragility of human morals under the lure of power and wealth. Here, Roy doesn’t just depict economic strife; he dissects the soul’s vulnerabilities, turning a village election into a mirror for India’s nascent democracy
from realism to satirical moral probe.
It’s rooted in human frailty.
Through the film, Bimal Roy restored faith in humanism and used the power of satire to reveal frailty without judgment.
News Edit KV Raman