Kapurush O Mahapurush

Kapurush O Mahapurush (The Coward and the Holy Man) 1965

Year - 1965
Producer - R. D. Bansal & Co. (R. D. B. Productions)
Screenplay - Satyajit Ray
Based on - The short stories Janaiko Kapuruser Kahini by Premendra Mitra (The Coward) and Birinchibaba by Parasuram (The Holy Man)
Photography - Soumendu Roy
Editor - Dulal Dutta
Art Director - Bansi Chandragupta
Music - Satyajit Ray
Sound - Nripen Paul, Atul Chatterjee, Sujit Sarkar
Length - Kapurush 74 min.; Mahapurush 65 min.
Print - Black & White

Cast for Kapurush:
Bimal Gupta - Haradhan Bannerjee
Amitabha Roy - Soumitra Chatterjee
Karuna Gupta - Madhabi Mukherjee

Amitabh, a scriptwriter of commercial films, drives in the country, scouting for locations. When his vehicle breaks down, he is taken in by a tea planter whose wife is Karuna, a woman whom he had formerly loved but whom he was unable or unwilling to take care of. In those days he was a poor student, uncomfortable with his involvement with this woman from a well-off family; just as she had made up her mind to accept his situation and bravely confront her family's disapproval, he left her. Now that he has become successful on his own, Amitabh would love for Karuna to leave her husband and live with him. He arranges a rendezvous at the train station.

Cast for Mahapurush:
Birinchi Baba - Charuprakash Ghosh
His assistant - Rabi Ghosh
Gurupada Mitter - Prasad Mukherjee
Buchki - Gitali Roy
Satya - Satindra Banerjee
Nibaran - Somen Bose
Professor Nani - Santosh Dutta
His wife - Renuka Roy

Birinchi manages to pass himself off as a sadhu (sage, holy man) and takes advantage of the credulity of a father and his daughter Buchki. This does not suit her fiance Satya, who fears that her religious conversion will pull her away from him. He will do anything to recover his beloved and expose the sadhu or holy man.