indian cinema heritage foundation

Parineeta (1953)

  • Release Date1953
  • GenreDrama
  • FormatB-W
  • LanguageHindi
  • Run Time151 min
  • Length3977.94 meters
  • Gauge35 mm
  • Censor RatingU
  • Censor Certificate NumberU-8878-MUM
  • Certificate Date23/7/1953
  • Shooting LocationBombay Tolkies Limited (Studios) Malad.
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Lalita, the orphaned niece of an impoverished but honest clerk named Gurucharan, is a beautiful and sensitive girl, loved by all. She has formed a great attachment to Shekhar, the second son of Gurucharan's rich zamindar neighbor, and one of her daily jobs is to clean his room, bring up his breakfast and attend to his casual needs. The affinity between the two and the selflessness with which Lalita ministers to Shekhar endear her to Shekhar's mother, Bhubaneshwar Devi, and she treats Lalita like her own daughter.

The roofs of the two houses adjoin and that is the way Lalita and her younger sister, Anarkali, use for nipping into and out of Shekhar's house. The relationship between the two is of the purest kind and of the worldly variety of love both are completely innocent. 

Gurucharan has had to mortgage his house of Shekhar's father in order to get one of his many daughters married and, unable to equate his modest expenses with his very slender income, is heavily debt-ridden. Shekhar's father, a mercenary individual, often chides him about his overdue loan and a day comes when completely pressed on all sides, Gurucharan is forced to take advantage of the altruistic ofter of an interest-free loan made by a wealthy young man named Girin in order to liquidate his indebtedness to Shekhar's father. This gives rise to an ugly misunderstanding that Lalita has been "sold" to Girin for the sake of filthy lucre and Shekhar, who has by now discovered that he loves Lalita and she loves him no less, suddenly cools off towards the girl. Shekhar's father, a man of wrath, orders a wall to be erected across his roof so as to block entry from Gurucharan's house and thus a beautiful and pure love seems doomed to extinction.

Lalita's love is wordless and she suffers all the agonies of an apparently jilted girl in stoic silence. She has irreplaceably enshrined Shekhar in her heart but is unwilling to plead or whimper in objection. The chasm between the two lovers widens and the migration of Gurucharan's family to another city does nothing to bridge it.

What happens thereafter forms the griping rest of this great story of perfect love.

(From the official press booklet)