Bahurani (1963 film)


Bahurani is a 1963 Indian Hindi-language drama film directed by T. Prakash Rao. The film stars Guru Dutt, Mala Sinha and Feroz Khan in lead roles.
It is a remake of the Telugu movie Ardhangi, which was based on Maddipatla Suri's Telugu translation of the Bengali novel Swayamsiddha, written by Manilal Banerjee. Swayamsiddha went on to be made into a 1975 Bengali movie of same name. Ardhangi was remade in Tamil as Pennin Perumai and was also remade again in Hindi as Jyoti in 1981. The story of Swayamsiddha was also similar to the Kannada novel Mallammana Pavaada, by B. Puttaswamayya, which was adapted into the 1969 movie titled Mallammana Pavaada, for which the screenplay was written by director P. Pullaiah, based on his 1955 Telugu movie Ardhangi. The Kannada novel Mallammana Pavaada also inspired the 1987 Tamil movie Enga Chinna Rasa, which went on to be remade in Telugu as Abbaigaru, in Hindi as Beta, in Kannada as Annayya and in Odia as Santana.

Plot

The Zamindar has two sons — Raghu, by his first wife and Vikram, by his second wife. Raghu is a simple-minded and innocent young man. Vikram is cruel, domineering, selfish and greedy, and he maltreats everyone, from servants to his own brother Raghu. Vikram's vicious mother does the same.
After Vikram has a feud with a tough and smart village girl named Padma, who is the first person to ever confront him, the Zamindar gets the idea of marrying Vikram and Padma. Vikram refuses, and after a series of incidents, Padma marries Raghu instead. When she understands how her husband has been treated over the years, she vows to set things right, and in the process falls in love with him. Inspired by her love, fearlessness and no-nonsense attitude, Raghu begins to find the courage to resist his oppressors.

Cast

The soundtrack of the film contains two songs composed by C. Ramchandra with lyrics authored by Sahir Ludhianvi.

Other versions

The story line has been inspiration for various movies and has had various remakes in Indian film industry.