Mother India is a 1957 Indian epic drama film, directed by Mehboob Khan. Starred Nargis, Sunil Dutt, Rajendra Kumar, and Raaj Kumar. A remake of Khan’s earlier film Aurat, it is the story of a poverty-stricken village woman named Radha.
About Mother India in brief
Mother India is a 1957 Indian epic drama film, directed by Mehboob Khan. Starred Nargis, Sunil Dutt, Rajendra Kumar, and Raaj Kumar. A remake of Khan’s earlier film Aurat, it is the story of a poverty-stricken village woman named Radha. The title of the film was chosen to counter American author Katherine Mayo’s 1927 polemical book Mother India, which vilified Indian culture. Allusions to Hindu mythology are abundant in the film, and its lead character has been seen as a metonymic representation of a Hindu woman. Mother India metaphorically represents India as a nation in the aftermath of independence, and alludes to a strong sense of nationalism and nation-building. It was released in India amid fanfare in October 1957, and had several high-profile screenings, including one at the capital, New Delhi, attended by the country’s president and prime minister. The film won the All India Certificate of Merit for Best Feature Film, the Filmfare Best Film Award for 1957, and won the Best Actress and Best Director awards respectively. It became a definitive cultural classic and is regarded as one of the best films in Indian cinema. The music by Naushad introduced global music, including Western classical music and orchestra, to Hindi cinema. Adjusted for inflation, Mother India still ranks among the all-time Indian box office hits, and is still one of India’s most popular films. It is also the first Indian film to be ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film – the first ever Indian film ever to be nominated for this award.
It has been described as a’must-see film’ for Indian cinema fans. The movie opens in the year 1957, the present day at the time of filming. When construction of an irrigation canal to the village is completed, Radha is asked to inaugurate the canal. She remembers her past when she was newly married. The wedding between Radha and Shamu is paid for by Radha’s mother-in-law, who borrows the money from the moneylender Sukhilala. Shamu and Radha are forced to pay three quarters of their crop as interest on the loan of ₹500. While Shamu works to bring more of their rocky land into use, his arms are crushed by a boulder. Ashamed of his helplessness, and humiliated by SukhILala for living on the earnings of his wife, Shamu decides that he is of no use to his family and permanently leaves Radha and their three sons, walking to his own probable death by starvation. Soon after, the villagers begin to evacuate the village, but they decide to stay and rebuild it. Several years later, the two surviving children, Birju and Ramu are young men. Birju, embittered since childhood by the demands of Sukhillala, takes out his frustrations by pestering the village girls, especially Sukhlala’s daughter, Rupa. Ramu, by contrast, has a calmer temperament and is soon after. He is chased out of the village and becomes a bandit.
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This page is based on the article Mother India published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
