In 1952, at the first International Film Festival in Mumbai, director Bimal Roy saw Vittorio De Sica's 1948 Italian film "Bicycle Thieves" (1954). In the train while he was returning home, he decided to make his next film as real as the film and shot on location. His wife, Manobina Roy, recalled her excited husband instructing his unit to come up with a story right after the screening. The film was based on "Rickshawalla", a short story written by composer Salil Chowdhury. It revolved around a farmer who desperately pounds the streets of Kolkata to earn the Rs 235 needed to save his two acres of land, only to lose it to the industrialisation. Chowdhury agreed to Roy taking his idea, but on the condition that he would score the music.