Teesri Kasam (1966)

Wonderfully photographed by Mitra, who shot S. Ray’s early films, this musical melodrama sees Kapoor return to his role as a country bumpkin called Hiraman, a bullock-cart driver. Transporting a Nautanki dancer, Hirabai (Rehman) to join a performing troupe, he wins her affection with his old songs and by treating the ‘dancing-girl’ as a respectable woman. Hiraman eventually finds out that a dancing- girl in a troupe is in no position to refuse sex with local potentates. However, his innocence has persuaded her to fight off unwanted advances and to leave the Nautanki theatre. She bids farewell to Hiraman at the railway station and invites him to come and see her in a different show. The film ends with Hiraman taking his third vow, telling his bullocks that he will never carry a Nautanki dancer again. The sentimental story touches on the gross sexual oppression of women but in the end places its sympathies with the disillusioned Hiraman rather than with the woman. The film is notable mostly for its seamless, lyrical imagery and for Kapoor’s best performance of his archetypal persona.