Babasa Ri Laadi

1961 ?’ b&w/col Rajasthani

d B.K. Adarsh

pc Adarshlok

st/co-dial/lyr Pandit Indra co-dial Naval Mathur

c D.R. Dadhicha

m Shivram

lp P. Kailash, Hiralal, Rajkumar, Mohan Modi, Rajdeep, Kiran Lal, Saraswati Devi, Sarita Devi, Champak Lala, Dhannalal, Helen, Nana Palsikar

The second Rajasthani film (after G.P. Kapoor’s Nazrana, 1942) and its first hit. Feudal melodrama about the virtuous landlord Dharamdas, representing an idealised Marwari business community, who adopts a deceased employee’s daughter, Saraswati. She and Dharamdas’s son Ramesh fall in love, but her villainous uncle, who wants Ramesh to marry his flippant daughter Vaijayanti, uses his familial authority to arrange Saraswati’s marriage with the handicapped son of a greedy shah. The tragic consequences of feudal patriarchal powers are eventually overcome and the lead couple unite in the end.

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