Sujata (film)

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Sujata is a 1959 Hindi language Bimal Roy film. The film starred Sunil Dutt and Nutan. The film explored the situation of caste politics in India.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Sujata is a romance between a Brahmin young man, Adhir (Sunil Dutt) and an untouchable woman, Sujata (Nutan). The movie has Gandhi's fight against untouchability and the myth of Chandalika in Buddhism as its subtexts on the basis of which it tries to criticize the practice of untouchability in India. The stunning and sophisticated performance by Nutan is helpful in contrasting the stereotypes about the lowercastes as dirty, lazy, etc.

The film tries to show that if a person is brought up by Brahmins, she will be a Brahmin, no matter who she is born to. So as Adhir reassures Sujata, she is (and will be) the daughter of Upen Babu, her Brahmin foster father. Even though Adhir, Upen and Upen's daughter are tolerant towards Sujata, thet other women in the family, especially Upen's wife and Adhir's Grandmother, are against Sujata. They never fail to remind Sujata that she doesn't belong. The reconciliatory twist comes when Upen's wife falls down the stairs and is rushed to the hospital. In a predictable move, the doctors tell the family that they need blood of a rare group. Only Sujata's blood matches. When Upen's wife knows that her life was saved by Sujata, she realizes her mistakes and accepts her as her daughter.