Train journeys to somewhere and nowhere, men unable to crawl out of their fathers’ shadows, women caught between tradition and the desire f...
Train journeys to somewhere and nowhere, men unable to crawl out of their fathers’ shadows, women caught between tradition and the desire for independence, psychological dislocation caused by migration, the soul-destroying anonymity of the big city – 27 Down was completed in 1974 but has barely aged.
Directed by Awtar Kaul and based on Hindi writer Ramesh Bakshi’s 1966 novel Athara Sooraj Ke Paudhe, the Hindi-language movie stars MK Raina as Sanjay, a Railway ticket checker, and Raakhee as Shalini, a Life Insurance Corporation employee. The title refers to a long-distance train that takes Sanjay to Varanasi. Events in Sanjay’s life, major and minor, are influenced by this mode of transport. He is born on a train between stations; his father is a locomotive driver. He first meets his future girlfriend in a railway compartment, and their romance includes train dates.
Sanjay is torn between his desire to follow his dreams and his duty towards his authoritarian father. Whenever I see my drooping shadow, I see another, my father’s, he tells Shalini in a moment of despair.
When the darkness starts closing in on Sanjay, he seeks comfort in the precise chugging of the train. Later, the very architecture of the railway system, with its fixed timetables and...
