Kanyadaan (1968 film)

Plot

Film starts with a hockey match between the girls' team Bulbuls, and the boys' team Heroes. The girls win by 2 goals to one. Amar (Dileep Raj) from the boys' team and Lata (Sayeeda Khan) from the Bulbul team are attracted to each other. Amar Kumar (Shashi Kapoor) a poet, and friends with Amar. People often get confused with their names as their names are same. When Kumar knows about his friend's love, he takes initiative to marry them and promises Lata's father that he would take care of her as she has no in-laws to do so. Kumar, on the way to a town on business has a car break down and meets Rekha (Asha Parekh), a village girl. She invites him to stay at their house as he has no other place to go and Kumar accepts it. Tender emotions grow between them and next morning he leaves for business.

When he started back, he purposefully stops at her village. Convinced about Rekha's feelings for him, he approaches her mother to ask her hand in marriage. But when Rekha's mother (Achala Sachdev) reveals that Rekha was already married to a guy named Amar in her childhood and even Rekha was oblivious to that till now, he gets shocked. She gives him a photo of wedding and asks him to help her to find Amar, as she couldn't find where he lives now. Kumar silently goes away and Rekha, being a girl who respects traditions to core, accepts her fate and tries to forget Kumar. But When Kumar returns later with a photo of his childhood with his parents and his driving licence stating that his full name is Amar Kumar, she feels so happy and comes to his home as his wife.

However, Kumar later reveals the truth that original Amar was already married to Lata and she shouldn't disturb their peaceful marital life. He tells her that he loves her very much and asks her to accept the truth and marry him. But Rekha, sad and enraged leaves his house to kill herself but lands in the house of Amar and Lata. They treat her sympathetically, thinking that her husband might caused her trouble and thrown her out of house. Rekha understands that this is real Amar's house and seeing that he already settled peacefully in his life, doesn't reveal the truth. Kumar feels sad and depressed and turns to drinking. Meanwhile, tensions start to build in Amar's house due to overindulgence of innocent Rekha in household matters. Later, when Lata becomes enraged after learning about her husbands marriage, Rekha again decides to end her life. But her mother comes to them and tells Rekha that marriage that has happened in their childhood, without their consent was not a marriage at all, and real kanyadan( giving away bride in marriage by her parents or guardians) would happen when parents give away their adult daughter with her consent. Rekha at last accepts Kumar as a husband and everyone lives happily then.

Cast

Box-office

The film was a box-office success, doing a business of ₹1.5 crore, making it the fourth highest earner of 1968. However, according to IBOS the film made ₹ 2.34 crores (1968) which adjusted to present day gross would be ₹ 244.58 crores.

Music

The film’s music was composed by Shankar Jaikishan with lyrics by Hasrat Jaipuri and Neeraj. The singers providing playback were Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi, Asha Bhosle and Mahendra Kapoor. The film turned out to be a success with Shankar Jaikishan's music and songs like "Likhe Jo Khat Tujhe" and "Meri Zindagi Mein Aate". In particular, "Likhe Jo Khat Tujhe" is an evergreen song which has attracted more than 26 million views on YouTube (as on 2 September 2017), which is a lot more than the views received by many popular Bollywood songs.