Jana Aranya (The Middleman) is the final film in Satyajit Ray’s Calcutta trilogy Pratidwandi (The Rival) and Simabaddha (Company Limited). Though its theatrical release dates back by fifty years, the film is timeless in every way in terms of the issues raised within the film through the struggles of the protagonist Somnath (Pradip Mukherjee) and more importantly, through the rapidly changing ideology of the city of Calcutta seen through the eyes of Somnath and through his search for a respectable job following his graduation.

The timelessness reveals itself through the bitter truth of unemployment in urban metros like Calcutta. The film opens in an examination hall where young students are taking the university’s final graduation examination. Somnath is a bright student so his widowed father is convinced that he will bring home a solidly good result. He does not. This happens not because Somnath did not write his answers well but because the examiner could not read his very tiny writing which he could not read with his weak glasses. This points out clearly that it is not necessary that a brilliant student will necessarily bring home a brilliant result. This presses the “start” button of Somnath’s struggle and the “close” button on his affair with his girlfriend (Aparna Sen) who, fed up of waiting without any hope in sight, meets to tell him that she has agreed to an arranged marriage to a doctor organized by her parents.

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His hunt for a job takes quite some footage in the film through a collage of continuous shots – Somnath trying to type out a job application on an ancient typewriter and failing, getting it done by a professional typist for a fee; Somnath joining the mammoth crowds of youngsters to file in applications in a dozen different agencies all in vain, Somnath coming home to open the letterbox eager to find a response without result and so on. Then one fine day, he chances upon an old acquaintance (Utpal Dutt) who takes him to his “office” on an antique elevator to the first floor which has a common peon and several tables each allotted to a separate business of “Order Supply” known more commonly as “dalaal” (broker) or, to use a more sophisticated English term, “Middleman.” This middle-aged gentleman offers Somnath a table for an “office”, the use of the peon who is forever chewing on something and introduces him to possible clients and a hail-fellow-well-met and jovial p.r.o. of everything under the sun who turns up when Somnath meets an unforeseen ‘emergency’ before getting a handsome “order.”

Somnath’s affectionate sister-in-law (Lily Chakraborty), his father and elder........

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