Rupahi

In Rupahimukh, a small village by the Luit, a young couple, Bhumi and Champa, dream of being together. But Champa is brought up in the house of the village headman, Mayaram, who wants to marry the beautiful girl to a rich man and profit from it. He has already taken money by promising her to Dhananjay Dutta, clerk to the town lawyer Biswakanta Hazarika.

In the town lives the wealthy Haraprasad Barua, whose children Kanak and Minati work with friends to advance Assamese art and literature. Biswakanta Hazarika wants his proud and fickle daughter Mridula to marry Kanak, but Kanak, a man of refined taste, refuses.

Kanak comes to Rupahimukh for the work of his youth association and meets Champa. Mayaram hopes to gain from this acquaintance and poisons the ear of Pawan, a leading member of the association. Pawan, humane but easily swayed, misreads the situation and presses Kanak to save the innocent Champa from a false slander. Kanak agrees to marry her, and Haraprasad Barua arrives at Mayaram's door with the wedding gifts. The source leaves open what then becomes of Bhumi and Mridula.

Work on the film began during the height of the Second World War. Parvati Prasad Baruva founded a production house called Barua Bolchobi, Rupali Pam and made Rupahi under that banner. Besides producing and directing, he wrote the screenplay, dialogue and lyrics and also took charge of the music.

The story was drawn from a short story by Kamaleswar Chaliha, though the film later departed from it. The first part was shot in Majuli, where scenes of the raas dance of Dakhinpat Satra and the erosion of the Brahmaputra bank were recorded. The unit then went to Calcutta to film the interior scenes, where it was found that none of the footage shot in Assam had come out. Parvati Prasad had to drop that portion and rework the whole story, and in the process a tragic tale became one with a happy ending. The scenes were shot on sets built at the Shri Bharat Laxmi Studio in Calcutta.

The film premiered at the Purabi Theatre in Calcutta on 30 August 1941 and was released at the Sati Talkie House in Guwahati (later the Bijuli cinema hall) on 6 September 1941.

The only print of the film was burnt in a fire at the Sonari cinema hall in 1978. The negative, kept in the warehouse of Film Services in Calcutta, was also lost.