Sparsh

aka The Touch 1979 145’ col Hindi d/s Sai Paranjpye p Basu Bhattacharya pc Arohi Film Makers lyr Indu Jain c Virendra Saini m Kanu Roy lp Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Om Puri, Sudha Chopra, Pran Talwar, Arun Joglekar, Mohan Gokhale, Lakshman Tandon, I.V. Sambhani, Arun Sachdev, Tapan Kumar Nandi, Baladutt Sharma, Amjad Ali Khan

Paranjpye’s first full-scale art-house feature tells a love story set among the blind. The blind Anirudh Parmar (Shah) runs a school for blind children and is particularly touchy about the notion that the children might be perceived as less than self-sufficient. Kavita (Azmi), who takes up charitable causes after the death of her husband, becomes involved with the school and falls in love with Anirudh. They are to marry, but Anirudh cannot get rid of the suspicion that she is doing it out of pity. This humanist though sentimental story was commended by reviewers for the performances of the children and the several comic moments that enlivened the script.

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