Thikana Rajpath means “Address: Highway.” It is about surrogate motherhood forced on a poor woman and what happens when the rich woman who asked her to bear her husband’s child becomes pregnant herself, forgetting about the promise of paying her a hefty sum that will help her find a roof over her head when her hutment is demolished to build a highway. The title is a metaphor for a microcosm of a neighbourhood near any Kolkata highway. It forms a hub for a collage of people, a few rich, some corrupt and mostly poor, who inhabit the neighbourhood. Monisha (Indrani Halder) and Rathin (Rajatava Dutta) are rich but Monisha is unhappy because she is childless after seven years of marriage. Padma (Debasree Roy), a maid who works for her, lives in a slum colony alongside the railway tracks with husband Madhab (Debesh Roy Choudhury), a rickshaw-puller and three kids. She becomes a surrogate mother but is left in the lurch when Monisha becomes pregnant.
Mala (Anu Choudhury) begs around the bus terminus with a baby she hires. Bipin (Biswajit Chakraborty) is a middleman who makes money by exploiting the poor.

Technical Expertise
Thikana Rajpath is perhaps the first Bengali film that tackles surrogate motherhood seriously. It underscores the callousness of the rich and the dignity the poor are capable of. Director Kanoj Sen has paid close attention to ambient sound - the running trains near Padma’s slum abode, the loud honk of bus horns dotted with the noise of traffic at peak hours, the bell of Madhab’s cycle-rickshaw repeatedly underscore the reality of the ‘highway address’. A sad pointer is that Indrani as Monisha, an educated woman, pronounces ‘surrogate’ as ‘sarrowgate’ several times. Mala is the surprise package, virtually forgotten after her doll-like performance in Raj Mahal. Biswajeet Chakraborty as the paan-chewing middleman is excellent. Debashree Roy is a picture of dignity as Padma. She is scathing in her indictment of the rich Rathin and though she gives away the baby to Monisha, she refuses the money.

The songs, mainly used on the soundtrack, are good and sparsely used. One dream scene with Mala is choreographed simply against beautiful lyrics but is convincing. The closing frames show Monisha and Rathin drive away in their car with the baby mothered by Padma. A little boy runs after the car. The camera slowly moves back, as the car disappears in the distance. Thikana Rajpath crusades for the upholding of values like honesty where greed has no place and shortcuts to make money are not the ideal way out in the long run.
Verdict
The three stars are for acting, direction and for the overall, unglamourised and realistic look of the film.