''27 Down'' is a

1974 Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by Awtar Krishna Kaul, starring Raakhee and M.K. Raina. The film is based on the

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

novel ''Athara Sooraj Ke Paudhe'', by Ramesh Bakshi, about a railways employee who meets a girl on the train. The film's music was performed by classical musicians Hariprasad Chaurasia and Bhubaneswar Mishra, while the production design was by Bansi Chandragupta. At the

21st National Film Awards The 21st National Film Awards, presented by Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India to felicitate the best of Indian Cinema released in the year 1973. Ceremony took place in Oct ...

, the film won the Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi as well as Best Cinematography, for Apurba Kishore Bir. The film's director Avatar Kaul died in an accident the same week the awards were announced. It was his only film.

Plot

The film is set on 27 Down, the Bombay-Varanasi Express, Sanjay (M.K. Raina) is on a pilgrimage journey to

Varanasi Varanasi (, also Benares, Banaras ) or Kashi, is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world.* * * * The city has a syncretic tradition of I ...

(Banaras), and remembers his life in flashbacks. Sanjay gives up his dreams to become an artist, in order to support his family he takes up his father's profession of railways employee. He spends his days as a railways ticket checker, till he meets a Life Insurance Corporation employee, Shalini (Raakhee), on the suburban train. After a few more meetings, they fall in love, and Sanjay starts seeing life differently, but when his father finds about their relationship, he fixes his marriage with some other girl.

Cast

* Raakhee as Shalini * M.K. Raina as Sanjay *Rekha Sabnis as Sanjay's Wife *

Om Shivpuri Om Shivpuri (14 July 1938 – 15 October 1990) was an Indian theatre actor-director and character actor in Hindi films. A National School of Drama, New Delhi alumnus, Shivpuri became the first chief of the National School of Drama Repertory C ...

as Anna (Sanjay's father) * Madhavi Manjula as Aka (Sanjay's mother) * Sadhu Meher * Sudhir Dalvi as Sanjay's friend * Nilesh Vellani as young Sanjay

Music

#"Chuk Chuk Chuk" - Ravi Kichlu

Special Mention

27 Down is featured in Avijit Ghosh's book, 40 Retakes: Bollywood Classics You May have Missed. He wrote the film explores urban alienation just like French writer Albert Camus did in his novels; something no Hindi film had done before. Cinematographer AK Bir's camera travels inside the mind of the protagonist, he also said.

Production

The film was shot on location on Bhusaval railway station, steam yard, suburbs of railway premises and railway quarter for some scenes while other major parts at Mumbai trains, platforms, and at Mumbai's Victoria Terminus station, suburbs of Mumbai, the cinematographer of the film, Apurba Kishore Bir was 22 years old when he got the project, he shot 70 percent of the film using a hand-held camera, inspired by '' The Battle of Algiers'', a 1966 war film with an aim to put the camera right in the conflict, he shot with wide lenses rather than zooms. Bir chose to shoot the film in black and white, as he wanted stark contrasts. As it was difficult to control across crowd, most of the film's platform scenes were shot in the night, or at side platforms, and extras made it look like a busy time.

References

27 Down : Map of the Human Heart

External links

* * {{National Film Award Best Feature Film Hindi 1974 films 1970s psychological drama films Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography National Film Award Films set in Mumbai Rail transport films Indian psychological drama films Films shot in Mumbai Films based on Indian novels Indian black-and-white films 1970s Hindi-language films 1970s Indian films Best Hindi Feature Film National Film Award winners 1974 directorial debut films 1974 drama films Hindi-language drama films