Bahu Beti

(1965)

Shanta(Mala Sinha)'s story is in fact the story of millions of Indian women with a difference. She is the daughter and daughter-in-law in the same house and to the same man, who, a retired judge (Ashok Kumar), gives her this honouraba as well as unique position after a struggle, long drawnout and continuous, against an orthodox, conservative society, which still does not believe in giving a young woman her rightful place in society and in allowing her to choose her own life and love. Shakhar(Joy Mukerjee) an enlightened young man, a poet, falls in love with Shanta, knowing fully well her helpless circumstances. In his affairs he gets sympathetic help from Shanta's friend and sister-in- law Savitri(Mumtaz) who is married to a bum, named Mahesh(Mehmood). Mahesh has to persue his own wife with the passion of an ordent lover and in this persuit he is supported by his orthodox father (Dhumal). Shanta's bull-work of support and strength is her father-in-law, the retired judge who faces fearful odds, to make her his daughter.