Teen Kanya (1961)

Based on popular Indian stories of great writer Rabindra Nath Tagore, these short films reveal definitive moments in the lives of three young girls.

Director:

Satyajit Ray

Writers:

Satyajit Ray (screenplay), Rabindranath Tagore (stories)

Stars:

Anil Chatterjee, Chandana Banerjee, Aparna Sen

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Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Anil Chatterjee	...	Nandal (segment "Postmaster") (as Anil Chattopadhyay)
Chandana Banerjee	...	Ratan (segment "Postmaster") (as Chandana Bandyopadhyay)
Nripati Chatterjee	...	Bishey (segment "Postmaster") (as Nripati Chattopadhyay)
Khagen Pathak	...	Khagen (segment "Postmaster")
Gopal Sen	...	Bilash (segment "Postmaster")
Krishnakamal Bhattacharya	...	(segment "Postmaster")
Haridhan Nag	...	(segment "Postmaster")
Narayan Ghosh	...	(segment "Postmaster")
Batakrishna Nandan	...	(segment "Postmaster")
Haricharan Nag	...	(segment "Postmaster")
Khana Roy Chowdhury	...	(narrator) (segment "Postmaster")
Kali Bannerjee	...	Phanibhushan Saha (segment "Monihara") (as Kali Bannerji)
Kanika Majumdar	...	Manimalika (segment "Monihara")
Kumar Roy	...	Madhusudan (segment "Monihara")
Govinda Chakravarti	...	Schoolmaster and narrator (segment "Monihara") (as Gobinda Chakrabarti)

Storyline

The first story is about Nanda, a young man who leaves Calcutta to work as a postmaster in an isolated malaria-infested village. The postmaster is looked after by a young orphan girl, Ratan. His only solace in the village is in teaching Ratan how to read and write. The second story is about a student, Amulya, who returns to his village after finishing his exams. His widowed mother is very anxious for him to marry, and has already picked out a girl. He rejects his mother's choice and, being forced to choose some girl, marries a lively tomboy who is not ready to give up her freedom.

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Plot Keywords:

india | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama

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Certificate:

Passed

Details

Country:

India

Language:

Bengali

Release Date:

5 May 1961 (India)

Also Known As:

Three Daughters

Box Office

Gross USA:

$81,200

Company Credits

Production Co:

Satyajit Ray Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

173 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Collection of three short films: "Postmaster", "Monihara" and "Samapti". "Monihara" was dropped for the "Two Daughters" version.

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Alternate Versions

Monihara segment is missing from the international version.

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Connections

Features Conversation with James Ivory (2010)

User Reviews

Delightful vignettes about women in society -- hilarious (PLOT DISCUSSED)

Originally, this movie comprised _three_ separate stories by the legendary Rabindranath Thakur (Tagore); hence the title "Teen Kanya" ("Three Daughters"). However, the subtitling could not be finished in time for a Tagore anniversary, so the middle story, a ghost story, is not included in the videocassette, retitled "Two Daughters." In the two remaining stories, we explore the lives of two girls living in a world not of their making, facing their fates with limited options. The first story, "The Postman," is about a lower-middle-class bourgeois city boy who goes deep into the Bengali countryside to take a job as a village postman. The "daughter" in this story is Ratna (nicknamed "Ratan"), his servant, a little slip of a girl. In the west, this girl, an orphan, not even at the age of adolescence, is a child. How can she cope? What can she look forward to? The second story, "Samapti," is about another girl in rural Bengal, this one a little older. She's what we would call a "tomboy." The life of an adult woman in this society -- a housewife -- wouldn't seem to be much in her taste. She is active, vivacious, lively, brazen, playful. She is known as "Pagli" ("crazy") by the disapproving villagers. But it is these very qualities that attract the attention of Amulya, a young college graduate who has returned home to his widowed mother to be nagged by her to settle down and take a wife -- a traditional, shy, modest, and, in Amulya's view, boring wife. Despite the serious subject of these two stories, they are actually quite funny. The second story is even hilarious, with a couple of near-slapstick sequences. (In the scene in which Amulya breaks the news to his mother as to which girl he really likes, pay close attention to what's happening in the background.)