Abhijan

অভিযান Abhijan (The Expedition)
Directed by	Satyajit Ray
Produced by	Abhijatrik
Written by	Satyajit Ray, adapted from the novel Abhijan by Tarashankar Bandopadhyay
Starring	Soumitra Chatterjee Waheeda Rehman Ruma Guha Thakurta Gnyanesh Mukherjee Charuprakash Ghosh Rabi Ghosh Arun Roy
Cinematography	Soumendu Roy
Release date	28 September 1962
Running time	150 min.
Country	India
Language	Bengali

Abhijan (অভিযান) is a 1962 Bengali film directed by the Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray.

The film gives the famous Ray flavour in its composition, flow and dialogues, and use of symbols. The protagonist Narasingh (played by Soumitra Chatterjee) is seen as a prototype for the character of the cynical cab driver Travis Bickle (played by Robert De Niro) in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). Scorsese himself has credited Satyajit Ray as a major influence on his work.

Soumitra Chatterjee plays Narsingh, a taxi driver. Narsingh is a proud and hot-tempered Rajput with a passion for his car, a vintage 1930 Chrysler and his Rajput heritage. Being a descendant of a royal Rajput family, his self-esteem is reflected through his inability to accept insult and defeat, as a result of which he even takes part in a small race with his car. He does not want to be the one who falls behind and develops a strong hatred for women and mankind in general. As a result of reckless driving, while overtaking the car which carried the district inspector, his licence is taken from him. He is utterly destroyed by it, since the cab was his life after his wife had left him for good. Deeply affected by the insult and a feeling of rootlessness, he decides to go back to the land of rajput where his true rajput lineage will be respected. While on an aimless journey, Narsingh is picked up by Sukharam who is a local Marwari businessman with a record of smuggling and human trafficking. Sukharam (Charuprakash Ghosh) offers him a handsome fee to transport some goods which actually is opium. The realisation of the immoral trade puts Narsingh in a compromising position, but he decides to join hands with Sukharam anyway. After all no one he saw was truly following the path of law and morality, not even his ideal and beloved Neeli (Ruma Guha Thakurta).

Neeli runs away with the crippled lover of hers and Narsingh's deep distrust of women deepens. As a result, even after knowing that Gulabi is a victim of Sukharams trafficking he forces her to sleep with him without any emotional involvement. At this point he is almost on the verge of becoming the one he used to hate, the lawless ones who also fail to face the world.

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