“Abhijan represents a departure in Ray's career which can only be explained in terms of his periodic urge to break out of the confines of what he is best reputed to do.... The world of taxi drivers and smugglers and kept women is as far removed from Ray's middle-class experience as anything could be.... (T)his story is garnished with drunken brawls and much racing and rivalry amongst the drivers.... Bombay's front-rank star Waheeda Rehman('s)...seduction scene in which she sings, dances, cries, and tells her life story - all within a few minutes of long takes - is memorable....” --Chidananda Das Gupta, “The Cinema of Satyajit Ray.”
“The story is by the Bengali novelist Tarashankar Banerji, as was that of The Music Room (Jalsaghar), but Ray's direction of the film came about through sheer accident.... Ray was asked to crank the camera for the first shot, known as the ‘Mahurat' or opening ceremony.... He was so struck by the story and script, and also by the locale of the village of Dubrajpur very near Tagore's university Santineketan - a starkly dramatic stretch of land strewn with enormous boulders - that he spontaneously offered to direct the film, to the delight of producers. To quote Ray: ‘It has a strong plot...it has toughs and taxi drivers...and it is 50 per cent action....'” --Amita Malik, Sight & Sound