Satyam Shivam Sundaram: Love Sublime
Truth, beauty and Godliness are subjective and humans have not been able to find an objective definition for either through centuries of search. It is a human's love, faith and devotion that gives any meaning to any of the 3. The story is set in a village where Roopa (Zeenat Aman) lives with her father, the village priest Pandit Shyam Sunder (Kanhaiyalal). Roopa is unconsidered a jinx as her mother died while giving birth to her. Bansi (A. K. Hangal) is Roopa's uncle and protects her from Pandit's wrath. Pandit wanted a boy and hence hated Roopa as a burden on himself. From the very early age, Roopa had a fabulous voice and she supported her father, the temple priest, in conducting religious ceremonies for patrons, which requires singing devotional songs. Still, the priest does not value Roopa and does not even celebrate her birthday as he says that he lost his wife the same day and does not know how to celebrate that day. As a young child (Padmini Kolhapure), the right side of Roopa's face and neck were burned by a pot of boiling oil which she spilled on herself while cooking a meal for her father. She was cooking the meal on occasion of her birthday, which Bansi insisted should be celebrated, leaving part of her face disfigured. Due to this dis-figuration, she is unmarried and everyone in the village pities her. Henceforth, Roopa keeps her right cheek hidden under the veil of her sari. Despite the terrible accident, Roopa remains religious and goes to the village temple daily, singing hymns and devotional songs. Pandit is eager to get Roopa married as she is old enough, but Shastri (Subroto Mahapatra), Roopa's prospective father-in-law & Shastri's son (Javed Khan) demand a hefty dowry to take her on. Despite the cruelty of her own father, Roopa understands her fate and says that she is resigned to stay at home and does not want Shyam to exert himself in his old age to gather money for her dowry. Rajeev (Shashi Kapoor) is a dashing engineer who arrives in the village to oversee the operation of a major dam. He lives in a guest house managed by dam supervisor Bade Babu (David Abraham Cheulkar) and Bade Babu's wife (Leela Chitnis). Jai Singh (Vishwa Mehra) is the supervisor. Rajeev's mom and dad have already passed away. Rajeev abhors anything ugly and he even gets scared when he sees his optically disfigured face in mirrors at the village fair. He hears Roopa's lovely singing at the temple and then later at the inauguration function of the new dam and meets her when she arrives at the temple again early morning. Rajeev does not see her disfigured side, and falls in love with her. Village belle Champa (Sheetal) is also in love with Rajeev. Rajeev mistakes Champa for Pooja and expresses his love for her. When he realizes she is not Pooja, he runs away, angering Champa. Rajeev continues to pursue Roopa during her morning singing sessions at the temple. He follows her to a waterfall where he watches her bathe and return to the temple. Rajeev introduces himself to Roopa and it is clear that he is attracted to her. Roopa hides her hideous side from Rajeev. One day Roopa and Rajeev both share a sensuous moment under the waterfall, where Pooja also finds herself attracted to Rajeev. Rajeev kisses her that day. He wants to sleep with her, but Roopa says she will have sex only after marriage. Rajeev then asks her father's permission to marry her. Roopa does not want to cheat Rajeev because she loves him deeply and first request his father to reject the marriage proposal. But everyone from the village (including the Panchayat) request her to change her mind. They even donate funds for her wedding festivities and thereby she agreed to get married to Rajeev thinking he may accept her with her condition as he claimed to love her truly. After the wedding, Rajeev discovers the truth and thinks that he was cheated and forced to marry someone else, at which point he disowns Roopa and drives her out of the house. Rajeev roams around the village at the wedding night in search of another Roopa, as he think there is another girl with the same name, waiting for him. On the other side, after being rejected by Rajeev at their wedding night, Roopa decides to commit suicide but rescued by Rajeev, when he thought he found the girl he fall in love with, not his wife. After being rescued, Roopa decides to meet him at night, using a veil to hide the scarred side of her face. Rajeev spends his days ignoring his wife, and his nights loving his mistress including having sex with her in the darkness of night, not knowing they are both the same woman. Rajeev's servant Jaisingh notices that Roopa is meeting Rajeev as his mistress at night. During one of their nights together, they make love and Roopa gets pregnant. When Rajeev finds out that his wife is pregnant, he accuses her of infidelity and refuses to believe that his "mistress" and wife are the same. He publicly shames her and wont relent even when Jaisingh also confirms that Rajeev's wife is Roopa and there is no other girl, and sends her back to her home. Seeing it, Roopa's father dies out of agony. Roopa vows that she will never ever return to Rajeev as his mistress. A terrible storm ravages the village, breaking open the dam which Rajeev had come to repair. The village is being evacuated as the dam's shutters are opening. In the swirling waters of the flood, Rajeev sees how shallow he has been. He finds his wife singing a lovely song in her sweet voice and comes to the realization that Roopa and his wife are the same woman, and saves Roopa from drowning. The dam waters flood the village and break the bridge that the villagers were using to cross over to the other side and safety. Once safe in the vicinity of the temple, Rajeev ask for Roopa's forgiveness and accepts Roopa as his wife.
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