The Coward (1965)

Soumitra Chatterjee: Amitabha Roy

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Quotes 

• Amitabha Roy : All this palm reading was just an excuse to hold your hand.

  Karuna Gupta : You think it wasn't an excuse for me to offer it?

• Amitabha Roy : Forget what happened before. I had no courage then, but I do now.

• Bimal Gupta : Mr. Roy, I haven't bored you, have I?

  Amitabha Roy : Writers aren't easily bored.

  Bimal Gupta : Hmm?

  Amitabha Roy : They're always looking for new material.

• Karuna Gupta : I haven't seen a Bengali film in ages. It would be easy when we go to Calcutta, but you never let me.

  Bimal Gupta : [laughing disparagingly]  Bengali films!

  Amitabha Roy : Why do you laugh?

  Bimal Gupta : You know, Mr. Roy, the Bengalis of this present generation have no moral fiber. And that is reflected in everything they do. Everything! Whether films, or politics, or...

  Karuna Gupta : Must you really speak this way when we have a Bengali guest?

  Bimal Gupta : [addressing Mr. Roy]  Certainly! Criticize Bengalis to a Bengali, but praise them to others. Right?

  Amitabha Roy : Right.

  [Bimal Gupta toasts him and laughs] 

• Bimal Gupta : Don't tell me you're putting me in your story!

  Amitabha Roy : Would you object?

  Bimal Gupta : Certainly not! But, on one condition.

  Amitabha Roy : What?

  Bimal Gupta : Don't make me the villain. That would upset my wife.

• Amitabha Roy : Karuna! Must you be so terribly polite? I can't bear it when you speak to me so formally. This is too much.

  Karuna Gupta : You prefer I be rude?

• Karuna Gupta : You're angry.

  Amitabha Roy : Why would I be?

  Karuna Gupta : Because I came to your room. You have a sullen look on your face.

  Amitabha Roy : That's how I look when I haven't shaved.

• Amitabha Roy : I know you're used to all kinds of comforts. I've been to your house. I've seen it with my own eyes.

  Karuna Gupta : My house? Is that all you saw? Did you see the person there? Did you recognize her? This last year and a half, haven't I told you over and over that when I'm with you - - maybe you thought it was just romantic drivel. I don't blame you. It's hard to really know a person.

• Amitabha Roy : Just give me a little more time.

  Karuna Gupta : That's impossible.

  Amitabha Roy : Why not try?

  Karuna Gupta : What's the use, Ami? What you really need isn't more time, but something else.

• Karuna Gupta : It's just a cold lunch today, you know.

  Amitabha Roy : Cold things are all I expect from you.

• Bimal Gupta : Mr. Roy, you were asking about neighbors.

  Karuna Gupta : Shall I pour the tea.

  Bimal Gupta : It's not that no one else lives around here. All our staff - clerks, teahouse babus - they're all within a mile.

  Karuna Gupta : Sugar?

  Amitabha Roy : Two spoons.

  Bimal Gupta : But you can't really call them neighbors, because outside working hours, it's a sort of unwritten law that you're not to see them.

• Bimal Gupta : There's a rigid caste system operating in these parts. A manager can only mix socially with another manager. If you were as assistant manager, I wouldn't be sitting here having breakfast with you. Atkinson, T.P. Chatterjee, Mehra, Terry Waters - they're all my equals.

  Amitabha Roy : And - you accept this system as it is?

  Bimal Gupta : The British maintained this system for 150 years. Am I to carry out a one-man revolution?

• Amitabha Roy : I know the answer to my own question. You can't be happy. You two can't have a single thing in common. Why won't you admit it?

  Karuna Gupta : Maybe I didn't want to be happy.