indian cinema heritage foundation

Kasturi (1954)

  • LanguageHindi
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Dr. Jagdish agreed to consent to the marriage of his son Dr. Amar to Kasturi after she became mentally unbalanced, due to a serious illness, not because he considered the mutual love between Kasturi and Amar, the loyalty to his ailing friend, the girls' Grandpa Rao Sahib Jankinath, more pressing, and also because being a doctor, he did not consider insanity, a permanent or incurable state of human mind.
The fact of insanity of his bride was revealed to Dr. Amar on the nuptial night.
Being a doctor himself and a worthy son of a worthy father Dr. Amar did not fly into tantrums at the prospect of having life-long mad "better half" on his hands; instead he, with the help of his father, tried every treatment to bring Kasturi back to normalcy. These efforts, unfortunately, were not successful and in the meantime one day, Rao Sahib fell prey to Kasturi's insanity, and an unscrupulous relative of the family, Ramesh, found the despondent and lonely state of Amar a good handle with which to start his selfish machinations. This Ramesh did by tantalizing the love-lorn Amar with a choice piece of feminity and his fiancee Neeli. However, upright a young man many be, he is not proof against the viles of an attractive woman. It was small wonder, therefore, that rascally Ramesh almost succeeded in preparing Amar to divorce Kasturi and marry Neeli. But Dr. Jagdish stepped in and persuaded his son to give him time to make a last try at treating Kasturi. And God so willed that Kasturi was completely cured.
How Kasturi reached to the knowledge on her recovery that her husband loved another woman can best be understood by a woman. She in the traditional Indian manner, agreed with her fate to remain insane, so that her husband might divorce her and marry the girl he was infatuated with. But fate suddenly forced the hands of the villainous Ramesh. Being forced by his creditors to take a drastic action, Ramesh saw no way out but to "rule off" Amar and be the owner of Rao Sahib's vast estate, he being second in succession.
The climax comes when Kasturi, still considered insane by Ramesh comes to know about his nefarious plan and at the risk of her own life, saves that of her husband. It was then that Amar learns that the yearning for love which set him off on such a wrong track was to be found in his own heart and he was so far like a deer who roamed the wilds in search of fragrance while having the best of them (KASTURI)-(musk) on his own person.
 

(From the official press booklets)