The Coward and the Holy Man
The Coward (Kapurush) is the story of a love triangle between a good-natured but boring planter, his strong but bored wife, and her ex-lover, who once lacked the courage to run off with her on her suggestion, and now turns up unexpectedly at the plantation. The Coward and the Holy Man is described by Marie Seton as “a light-weight film...not intended to be a masterpiece. It is a sketch of a segment of contemporary Indian society, peopled by three characters whose prototypes are on the increase.”
Commenting on the character of the wife, a woman treated, as always, with great interest and respect by Satyajit Ray, Indian film critic Chidananda Das Gupta compares her character to that of Charulata: “Times have changed; there is nothing of the nineteenth century in Kapurush.... But the position of the woman who is married to one man and loves another, has not changed.... The only difference time has made for her is in giving her the ability to seek out her lover and to propose marriage to him on her own initiative. In Mahanagar (The Big City), she had sought economic independence; in Charulata her right to love; Kapurush reflects her failure to find either. It is no accident that Madhabi Mukherjee plays the woman in all three...for it is, basically, the same woman...the middle-class Bengali woman taking a good look at herself, her rights, her position in a changing society.” (JB)
The Holy Man is a comic exposé of the folly of the superstitiously devout, who make it possible for confidence men to pose as saints - in this case, a “Babaji” who claims to be ageless - and thereby earn a living.