Sandhyaraag (1977), the black-and-white Assamese classic directed and produced by Bhabendra Nath Saikia, has an important place in the evolution of serious cinema in Assam. Based on Saikia’s story Banprastha, the film also features a screenplay and dialogues written by the director himself.
It received the Silver Medal for Best Assamese Film at the 25th National Film Awards and created history as the first Assamese film to be showcased in the Indian Panorama.
Cinematography was handled by Indukalpa Hazarika, while the cast included noted playwright Arun Sarma. The central character is portrayed by Runi Devi, who plays a domestic worker caught within the harsh realities of poverty, gender inequality and social displacement.
The film revolves around Putali, a widowed woman struggling to raise her two daughters, Saru and Toru, in rural Assam. After losing her husband in an accident, Putali finds it increasingly difficult to sustain her family. Like many impoverished rural households, she eventually sends her daughters to the city to work as domestic servants.
The city provides them with food, shelter and employment, but simultaneously distances them from their roots. Saru gradually becomes accepted within her employer’s household and adapts to urban life, while her younger sister Toru encounters unwanted advances from her employer’s son. Through their contrasting experiences, Saikia exposes the unequal power relationships embedded within domestic labour and the vulnerability of economically disadvantaged women.
The tragedy deepens when the sisters, having reached marriageable age, are sent back to their village by their employers, who no longer wish to bear the responsibility associated with them. Their return should have meant reunion with home, but instead becomes another form of displacement. Years spent in the city have left them unfamiliar with the skills required for rural survival. They struggle with activities such as pounding rice, harvesting paddy and weaving.
The sisters consequently find themselves trapped between two worlds, too poor to establish an independent life in the city and too disconnected from their village to survive comfortably there.
Saru’s desperation eventually drives her towards Moti, a driver who had worked for her former employer. Moti himself carries his own emotional and social burden, having been abandoned by his wife because of impotence. For Saru, however, questions of romance have become secondary to the basic necessities of existence. She wants food, clothing, shelter and, above all, an escape from the humiliation of being permanently identified as a housemaid.
When Moti promises to take her back to the city, Saru sees the possibility of beginning again. Toru and Putali then request Saru not to abandon them, transforming the closing moments into a deeply moving expression of collective female vulnerability.
One of the greatest strengths of Sandhyaraag is its restrained treatment of suffering. Everyday activities, silences, expressions and seemingly ordinary situations gradually reveal the characters’ desperation. The film’s realism gives the social commentary greater force.
Whenever I watch Bhabendra Nath Saikia’s films, I am reminded, in certain respects, of Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s cinema, particularly its patience, observation and attention to ordinary lives.
Although there is no direct connection, Sandhyaraag can also evoke memories of Adoor’s Naalu Pennungal, where individually structured stories collectively construct a broader portrait of womanhood. Saikia similarly transforms the experiences of Saru, Toru and Putali into a larger reflection on women, poverty, labour and survival.
The film is also notable for the performances of its younger actors. Mamani Das, portraying the heroine during childhood, and the other child performers display an extraordinary naturalness. Their acting does not feel manufactured or excessively theatrical, which makes the early portions of the narrative particularly convincing. The performances remain one of the film’s most understated achievements.
More than four decades later, Sandhyaraag continues to attract academic interest and has reportedly been examined in several PhD theses, demonstrating its value beyond conventional film appreciation. It represents an important transition in Assamese cinema from popular melodramatic entertainment towards socially conscious and realist filmmaking. Its success also helped establish a cinematic tradition that would influence later Assamese parallel cinema.
For contemporary viewers, Sandhyaraag remains relevant because the issues it raises, economic vulnerability, women’s dignity, domestic labour, migration and the rural-urban divide, have not disappeared. Portions of the film are available on YouTube, while the complete film is reportedly available through the Pragplay application.
Ultimately, Sandhyaraag proves that cinema does not need spectacle to leave a lasting impression. Saikia’s quiet, patient and deeply human storytelling turns the lives of three struggling women into a powerful document of Assamese society, and a landmark of Indian regional cinema.