Made seven years after Kabuliwallah, we find Tapan Sinha in something like George Cukor mode, spinning a story of witty widows on a train journey to Puri. The dialogue and character interaction fizzes with Bengali wit. Sharmila Tagore is the youngest of the women and the most distracted, staring continually out of the train window; Sinha beautifully captures her head turning toward and away from the group. The women meet a writer, played by the great Anil Chatterjee, who was also in The Cloud-Capped Star. He is a quieter presence – an observer and, perhaps, a proxy for Sinha himself. Unlike a Cukor film, however, this also boasts moments of great metaphysics, such as the scene on a beach where the writer’s spirit seems to soar. And given that this is Sinha, there’s a powerful assault on the taboos of widowhood and an assertion of the women’s right to re-marry. The actresses collectively won the 1964 Indian National Film Award for Best Actress. It's unfortunate that the film print is not perfect, but we are honoured to show it while Sharmila Tagore is present at EIFF.