Representation of the Protagonist in Bimal Roy’s 1959 film Sujata

Abstract

Women in many of the Bollywood films have been time and again portrayed as submissive, unimportant people, just as mere objects of sex, who do not have power to take decisions in life. On the contrary, the female protagonists in the films of Bimal Roy, took center stage and did what was beyond imagination for women in those days. That was an era where women were mostly confined to their houses and generally did not earn or learn. Women in films of Roy were decisive and made their own choices in their lives. Be it Lalita of Parineeta (1953) or Madhumati of Madhumati (1955) or Kalyani of Bandini(1963) or Paro and Chandramukhi in Devdas (1955), or Sujata in Sujata (1959), or Kamini in Biraj Bahu (1954),female leads in the films of Roy were never mere puppets in hands of men. Though scorned by society for being a dalit, a criminal, a prostitute, or just because they were females, yet in his films, women stood strong and fought against all odds. The paper attempts to analyze the portrayal of the protagonist in the film Sujata played by Nutan.
Keywords:- Bimal Roy; Women protagonist; Bollywood; Sujata; Decisive; Empathetic; Realism