indian cinema heritage foundation

Jagirdar (1937)

  • Release Date1937
  • GenreDrama
  • FormatB-W
  • LanguageHindi
Share
651 views

‘I love you with all my heart and what a world to will be Nila. When we shall be married.” When the young Jagirdar said this to his sweetheart, both of them did not know that the love which they professed for each other was to be the sole cause of their misery.

In spite of opposition in his house, the young Jagirdar decided to marry his sweet companion Nila. But no romance has ever run smoothly. Goaded by jealousy, Narayanlal who had failed to woo Nila manages to upset the apple-cart of the two lovers and very soon in obedience to his father’s wishes, the young Jagirdar has to leave for the foreign country on business.

But before going Nila and the Jagirdar are wedded secretly in the eyes of God and Nature. It was a meeting of two noble souls crying to the world for sympathy. After a painful farewell, the young Jadirdar at last sails on his new mission.

Only a few days later, the entire town is shocked to learn of the tragedy at sea in which the young Jagirdar is supposed to have been drowned. 

Nila was shocked and shaken to the very walls of her soul. In utter misery she passes her days, refusing to believe that her love-good has died the death of a mortal.

For days she shed tears of anguish and fear over her mausoleum of love and day by day she was thrown into greater panic as the loving memory of her love-good grew in her maternal womb in defiance of society and her codes.

She throws herself on the mercy of her father confessing all. But the old man who is wedded to society and slavish to its unwritten laws, refuse to give her quarter-and throws her on the streets as one orphan in the storm of life.

Pushed off and about-refused and denied-abused and ridiculed – kicked and assaulted, Nila the would-be-mother went about door to door with that spark of divinity in her womb to ask for shelter from human beings. But cruel, callous society looked upon that sacred memory of her love as a hideous bundle of sin.

Desperate at last, Nila is on the point of committing suicide, when Shripat an elderly peasant, after hearing the tragic tale saves her.

But Nila would not have it. She would rather kill herself than allow the babe to be born without a name. Shripat, the rustic agrees to marry Nila so that the child may get a name. Nila was saved.

A month later, Ramesh is born - an heirloom of wealth in the hut of poverty.

Time rolls on in comparative peace, till Ramesh is twelve years old and then – One day, the whole town is electrified with the news that the missing Jagirdar was alive and was expected in his town the very day.

Neela, the love-lorn maid of old is frightened. She had lived happily in the painful memories of the past, but she was not prepared for the pregnant future. At last, the Jagirdar and Nila meet and with tears and oaths are reconciled, but the old rustic Shripat unable to understand the meeting of two parted souls resents the meeting.

Banwarilal-the Secretary of the Jagirdar - watches the quarrel between Shripat and the Jagirdar -and at a psychological moment manages to kill the former in a way that attaches suspicion to the Jagirdar, thus getting a powerful hold over his master. With the guilt of murder hanging on his conscience, the Jagirdar soon becomes a tool of Banwarilal. And then the real drama begins!

Ramesh grows up to be a man and refuses to recognize his father…………….

Neela dies in the arms of her lover and hands over Ramesh to the care of the Jagirdar-
But Ramesh waives aside the protection of that paternal care-

Ramesh choose poverty wedded to self-respect-
Narayanlal plays his cards cleverly and victimizes the son to punish the father-
It is a glorious drama of human hearts in a turmoil of emotion-
What happens to Ramesh, who is shot by Narayanlal in a gangster’s den?
What happens to the Jagirdar who also receives two bullets?
And how does Narayanlal get he deserves?

And for all this, you must see the picture right up to the end.

[From the official press booklet]
 

Cast

Crew

Films by the same director