Laawaris (1978, India)

A Bollywood film about a boy, Hira, who is born to wealthy parents out of wedlock. For reasons of expediency they reject him and he is farmed out to a disreputable man for money.

The man uses Hira as a servant and hires him out to people. Hira proves to be intelligent and strong, and eventually makes his own way in the world successfully. After a long string of adventures he meets up again with his father, and he finds true love.

This is a long (over three hours) film, and in common with most Indian films, it contains several song and dance sequences not strictly related to the plot. In this one, Hira (played by Amitabh Bachchan) does a song and dance routine about 150 minutes into the film, including performance as three different unrelated drag characters, to the amusement of onlookers. Here he is a tall girl in pink (on stilts).

The next personality is a stout lady.

The third dance is as a woman in white.

The final routine seems to have a hairy chest and beard shadow.

The title means "orphaned".

HF April 2004

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