Vyjayanthimala

The first colour film produced by Raj Kapoor, "Sangam" (1964), one of the greatest love triangles of Indian cinema, features outstanding performances by Raj Kapoor, who plays Sunder, Rajendra Kumar, who plays his best friend Gopal and Vyjyanthimala, who plays Radha. Both men are in love with Radha, but she is in love with Gopal. When Sunder confides in Gopal that he is in love with Radha, Gopal sacrifices his love in the name of friendship and steps aside. Later, Sunder, a fighter pilot, is presumed dead when his aircraft is shot down. Radha and Gopal are about to be married, when Sunder returns safe and sound. Gopal once again steps back and Sunder and Radha get married. Their marital life is ruptured when Sunder discovers an unsigned love letter to Radha written by Gopal. What follows is a descent into misery as Sunder is consumed with jealousy.

The movie was shot in an era when educated people in cities were getting influenced by the western culture hence the people from rural areas who placed a lot of importance to values and culture, strongly abstained from marrying into city people's homes. Geeta is a girl from a well to do family and is well educated, her parents had brought up her with traditional values and respect for those values. After her graduation, her parents decide to marry her off with Ratan Chowdhury, the son of a zaminder, who had the mind frame that a highly educated wife would be incapable of handling and managing a home, specially in a joint family. Later he marries Geeta but his mentality and the talk of others stop him from accepting her. He disowns her and poor Geeta has to go back to her parents' house. Even after lot of insistence from her parents and friends she refuses to remarry. Instead she continues her studies to become a doctor. After garnering a degree in medical science she goes back to Ratan's village as Vidya. She wants to clear the wrong perceptions that Ratan has about her. Ratan couldn't recognise her, as he had not even seen her face, even during marriage. He falls in love with Vidya and intends to marry her, but one day during the annual cart race, Ratan meets with an accident and suffers a very bad injury post which needs surgery. Due to unavailability of any other doctor, Geeta has to do the job. She performs it successfully. Will Ratan accept Geeta in her new avataar?

Geeta lives a poor lifestyle near Charni Road, Bombay, along with her widowed mom, and a younger collegian sister, Vasanti. The family is dependent on Geeta, who uses a sewing machine to make ends meet. They rent a room to a ex-college student, Raj, and make some extra income from him. One day he falls ill, Geeta looks after him, and falls in love with him. Vasanti arranges their marriage, both re-locate to Poona, and become parents of a boy, Raja. Shortly thereafter Geeta's mom passes away, and Vasanti moves in with them. After a short while, Geeta notices that Raj and Raja are both spending more and more time with Vasanti than with her, and she starts suspecting that Raj maybe having an affair - not realizing that she may be opening a Pandora's box that may well change their lives forever. —rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com)