INDIAN MOVIES I WATCHED (since1990)

Preceded by a legend describing its heroine as a 'Brave Indian girl who sacrificed royal luxuries to the cause of her people and her country', the story opens with a prologue showing Krishnavati and her infant son being thrown out of the house in a thunderstorm by the wicked Prime Minister Ranamal who also killed her brother. 20 years later the now adult son, Jaswant, is hit by a royal motor car and given a bag of gold in compensation. His refusal of the gift attracts the admiration of Princess Madhuri. When the nasty Ranamal, who wants to marry her, imprisons her father the king, she becomes the masked Hunterwali, 'protector of the poor and punisher of evildoers', and performer of stunts like jumping over a moving cartand fighting 20 soldiers at once. She steals Jaswant's prize horse, Punjab, but returns it later. Jaswant chances upon a nude Hunterwali bathing in the river and after a long duel captures her and takes her to Ranamal to claim his reward.

K.L. Saigal stars as Chandidas and Umasashi as Rami, featuring several of their popular duets (e.g. Prem nagar mein banaongi ghar main) and other songs with Sanyal. This film is about Chandidas, a legendary 15th-C. Bengali Vaishnavite poet whose biography remains obscure but was an influence on the better documented Chaitanya (1486-1533), a school teacher who promoted the Vaishnavite ideology in Bengal, mostly through hymns about the Radha-Krishna legend. The film stressed the poet's teachings through the love story between Chandidas and a low-caste washerwoman, Rami. The conventional villain of the saint film genre, who represents the established order threatened by the outsider's revolutionary influence on common people, is the rapacious upper-caste merchant Bijoynarayan. When Rami rejects his advances, he persuades the high priest to insist that Chandidas must repent or be punished for associating with a low-caste woman. Chandidas agrees to repent but when he sees the injuries Rami has suffered at the hands of the merchant's goons, he rejects institutionalized religion in favor of the higher Vaishnavite call for a more democratic god and leaves the village with Rami.

Devdas, the son of Zamindar Narayan Mukherjee, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He grew up in the lush village of Taj Sonapur, where he spent his childhood, indulged by his lovely playmate Paro. They grew up sharing a special relationship, in which they existed only to each other. Oblivious of all the differences of status and background, a bond that would never break grew between them. Slowly, it changed to love but it was still unsaid. But the reverie was broken when his family sent Devdas to Calcutta for education. Paro's world crashed knowing that her Devdas would be gone and she lit a diya, for it signified the fast coming back of her loved one. Years passed and Devdas returned. Devdas was besotted by her stunning beauty and longed to have her back. But Zamindar Narayan Mukherjee, Devdas' father, met Paro's mother Sumitra's marriage proposal with condescending arrogance. It caused a rift between the families and even though Devdas tried to convince his father, the only antagonism came his way. Finally, he moved away from Paro and wrote a letter to her, asking her to forget him. Only, he didn't realize that he would never be able to forget her ever. And much later, when he reached out to her, it was too late as she was far too humiliated. She scorned him for not standing by her and they parted forever with a heart-broken Paro entering into a chaste marriage with a wealthy, much older man, Zamindar Bhuvan, while a shattered Devdas walked towards anguish, alcoholism and Chandramukhi. Chandramukhi, a stunning courtesan instantly lost her heart to Devdas. A unique bond was formed between both as he could share with her the intense pain of his unfulfilled love for Paro. Meanwhile, Paro, on the other hand, performed her worldly duties sincerely, but inside her heart, she could never forget Devdas for a moment. Strange was the fate of Devdas. Intensely loved by two women, who were never meant to be his.

Impoverished priest Harihar Ray, dreaming of a better life for himself and his family, leaves his rural Bengal village in search of work.

This final installment in Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy follows Apu's life as an orphaned adult aspiring to be a writer.

In WWII, a man leaves his bride to be and answers the call of the Indian National Army to fight against the British and on the side of Germany and Japan

Following his father's death, a boy leaves home to study in Calcutta, while his mother must face a life alone.

A young man takes shelter in a mansion when a landslide blocks his route to the railway station. Then, he finds the mansion familiar and soon learns about the story of his previous birth.

The scion of a wealthy landowner family turns to alcohol and self-pity and slowly self-destructs after class differences force him to break off his relationship with his childhood sweetheart.

In this melodrama, a poverty-stricken woman raises her sons through many trials and tribulations. But no matter the struggles, she always sticks to her own moral code.

A poor young man named Raj joins a criminal gang to feed his mother. But when he falls in love with Rita, he decides to reform himself for her.

When a young man from a small town decides to make it big in a city, he faces several challenges.

Pre-teen brother and sister, abandoned by their father to be taken care of by an abusive prostitute aunt, survive life in an Indian squatters' camp, aided by a friendly cripple, by learning to shine shoes instead of begging.

A simple-minded small-time singer joins a group of bandits and becomes the cause for their moral transformation and turnaround.

Returning home from war after being assumed dead, a pilot weds the woman he has long loved, unaware that she had been planning to marry his best friend.

Pran and Gopal fall in love with village girls while on a holiday. After returning home, Gopal continues to flirt with other girls. But Pran realizes that he has truly fallen in love.

An innocent guy who has arrived from a village to Kolkata gets himself involved into trouble in search of water after he gets thirsty in the middle of the night.

Raj, the son of strict, wealthy parents, falls in love with Bobby, the daughter of a poor Christian fisherman -- a romance his parents oppose.

Rupa (Zeenat Aman) grew up being cursed as "unlucky" in her birth village. Her mother died during childbirth, then a kitchen accident leaves half her face disfigured. This is an artistic exploration of beauty and disfigurement, society's values, and, more importantly how a girl, teenager, and bride was treated during the times. Rajeev (Shashi Kapoor), the stereotype male engineer, falls in love with Rupa, who has a divine singing voice and the unscarred left cheek. When he sees the scarred cheek after marriage, he heads off into a tizzy and continues nightly dalliance with his mistress--the beautiful cheek. Little does he realize that his wife and mistress are two faces of the same person.

Raju is a joker, a clown. It is what he is and what he always shall be. As his life story unfolds in three chapters, from his school days to the circus to the streets, he must always make people laugh and be happy, no matter how unhappy he is within. Along the way, Raju loves and loses, but must always keep a smile on his face because, in the words of his circus manager, "The show must go on." Over six years in the making, "Mera Naam Joker" is Raj Kapoor's semi-autobiographical story of the life, love, and philosophy of an entertainer.

The film is based on travelogues of XV century Russian traveler Afanasy Nikitin called "A journey beyond the three seas"

A part of the film was shot at the Garhwal region in the Himalayas. There are stills and videos of famous places of the Uttarakhand (then Uttar Pradesh) Himalayas like Rishikesh, Devaprayag, Kedarnath, etc

A struggling clerk lives with his wife and two children. Their blissful life is threatened with the arrival of his scheming mother and sister. A short time later, the clerk disappears, abandoning his family, and his brother comes to their rescue. Exploiting the fragile situation, mischief makers suggest an immoral relationship between the clerk's brother and wife. Frustrated, the clerk's wife sends her two children to beg on the streets. Several years later, the elder of the two children, now working in a mill, meets a bearded beggar who, unknown to him, is actually his father. He obtains his father a job in the mill, and the family later reunites.

Based on Shakespeare's 'A Comedy of Errors', this is a story of identical twins (2 pairs) and mistaken identities.