Antony Firingee (1967)

Reformist musical recounting the legend of a Portuguese-Indian who in the early 19th C. became a famous Bengali poet-musician (in the Kabigan genre). Antony Firingee [Antony the Foreigner] (U. Kumar) falls in love with the famous courtesan Shakila (Tanuja). At first she rejects him, but later reveals her tragic story: she is a widow who escaped when she was forced to commit sati (ritual immolation) and was later raped. She then agrees to marry Antony and they try to overcome social ostracisation when, under her tutelage, he defeats a series of famous poets (e.g. Bhola Moira) in the tradition of the Kabir Larai (contest between poets emphasising improvisation). However, he returns home to find his wife killed by a mob and resigns himself to being a social outcast, ‘the fate of all poets and foreigners’. Bagchi’s music was the film’s most successful feature.