Film TitleShatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players, Shatranj Ke Khiladi), 1977, India, English, Hindi, Urdu
Scene DescriptionOut of their palatial mansions, Mirza Sajjad Ali and Mir Roshan Ali are playing chess outside a small house in the village, getting bitten by mosquitoes and without servers to supply tobacco and food, for them to start getting irritated. The discomfort leads to a verbal spat between the friends, with Mirza commenting upon the affair between Mir's wife Nafisa and Aqueel, after having lost a game to Mir, causing the fight to grow bitter, both insulting each others' lienages and Mir pointing the gun towards Mirza in a state of extreme anger.
The duo are still engulfed in their fight when the child comes and informs them of the arrival of the British army causing Mir to shoot the gun, in a state of frenzy. The army arrives in Lucknow, taking over the kingdom on 7th February 1856. In the last scene after Mir having shot Mirza comes back and complains out loud "(If you die) I won't have a partner to play chess with", Mirza responds to him "but you have one in front of you!" (thus making him understand that he forgives him). He finally concludes that "after nightfall, we will go back home. We both need darkness to hide our faces." (21/35)
ProducerSuresh JindalDirectorSatyajit RayBannerDevki Chitra
Art DirectorBansi Chandragupta
CastDavid Abraham, Shabana Azmi, Victor Banerjee, Saeed Jaffrey, Farida Jalal, Sanjeev Kumar, Veena, Tom Alter, Richard Attenborough, Shaik Farid, Amrit-Bhushan Gujral, Barry John, Amjad Khan, Ramesh Khosla, Ashfaz Mirza, Leela Mishra, Kamu Mukherjee, Uttamram Nagar, Samarth Narayan, Farooque Shaikh, Pradip Shankar, Madan Sudan, Budhavani Budhavani, Khairatilal Khairatilal, Farooq Shaikh
EditingDulal Dutta
Music DirectorBirju Maharaj, Reba Muhuri, Satyajit Ray, Calcutta youth
