Ram Marathe

1940 Hindi film

Big-budget miracle-laden saint film on Tulsidas (16th C). who rewrote Valmiki's 'Ramayana' in Hindi. To the despair of his teacher Narahari Guru, who hopes that Tulsidas will make the classic text accessible to the people, the poet spends time with his beloved wife Ratnavali. The dramatic pivot of the story comes when Tulsidas discovers his life's vocation amid howling wind and a river in spate. He becomes an ascetic and settles down in Benares where his translation threatens the brahmanical clergy, until then sole proprietors of the wisdom of the Sanskrit text.

This mythological tells of the playful child Krishna (Marathe) and his battle against the evil King Kamsa (Ganpatrao) who rules the city of Gokul. The stories, mainly from the popular 'Bhagvat' and 'Vishnu Purana', also show Krishna vanquishing Keshi (Haribhau), Kamsa's general who arrives in disguise to capture him. Finally, when Kamsa unleashes rain and flood over the city (in a departure from the original legend where Indra caused the natural disaster), Krishna raises the mountain Govardhan over the people to protect them.

A cautionary tale about wealth not bringing happiness. The blind Mohan (Kumar) lives in a village with his ward Radha (Madhuri). He wins a fortune with a sweepstake ticket sold to him by the tramp Ramesh (Charlie), who claims his due and begins to take over Mohan’s life, making him move to the city and getting him married to Chinta, a prostitute. When Mohan’s eyesight is restored, he finds that his wife is having an affair with Ramesh. Mohan takes revenge and eventually lands up in his old village, a poor man, but with Radha still unchanged, waiting for him.