Kashmir ki kali (1964, India)

A Bollywood song, dance and romance film. The beautiful girl Champa is in love with Raju, but Champa's adoptive father has been deceived into believing that he is unsuitable. So when Champa says she is going to the fair tomorrow, we know, and he suspects, that she planning a tryst with Raju. Champa's Father tells her to go instead with the evil Mohan, who has designs on her.

Champa manages to get word to Raju. The next day Champa and some girlfriends are travelling to the fair in Mohan's truck, when they are flagged down on the road. A man appeals for a lift for his pregnant wife; the wife is fully enveloped in Muslim burqa, and she looks a little large and ungainly, but we can't see her face, of course. The solicitous husband persuades Mohan that the two men should travel in the cab of the lorry, and all the females, including Champa and the mysterious woman, will travel on the back.

The dialogue in the some versions of the English subtitles is rather dated:

Mohan: I say, your wife's taller than you!

Raju's friend: You don't know half the story; in her clan she's considered a dwarf; all her sisters are over 8 feet.

Once they get going, Raju reveals tothe others that the "woman" is in fact him and a song and dance number results; the strictly moralistic man is in the lorry's cab smiling contentedly as he hears the "women" singing as the lorry moves along the road.

HF August 2003

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