Leena’s (Leena Chandavarkar) marriage has been fixed. She is not happy. And when she is not happy, nobody is happy.
Leena is a spoilt, bratty rich girl, whose aunt and uncle have brought her up. Her late father’s will stipulates that she has to marry in order to inherit all his wealth. Leena is determined to find her own husband. To that end, she and her best friend Pushpa (Nazima) have put an advertisement for a wealthy groom in the newspaper. One reply is distinctly sarcastic, and really gets Leena’s goat.
She responds in kind, and after exchanging several (comic) letters she agrees to meet him—he says his name is Susheel Kumar—in Dehradun.
She tells her aunt and uncle that she’s going to marry a boy whom she knew in college and goes to Dehradun the next morning by train. Susheel has said he will meet the train wearing a red suit and carrying a bouquet of flowers. On arrival she is horrified to see an old man looking for her—not at all like the photos he had sent her—and tries to sneak away. A porter on the platform (Sanjeev Kumar) helps her get rid of the unwelcome suitor and find a hotel. She confides her problem to him. He suggests that she pay someone to marry her, and when she’s in possession of her property, she can divorce him.
After some thought, Leena asks him to take the job. She takes the precaution of getting the divorce papers in order (and in her possession) before the wedding; pays him a small amount up front, promising the rest when they get divorced; and marries him.
What could possibly go wrong? Back they go to Shimla, to Chachaji’s house. She gets her first intimation that “Susheel” is not going to be easily controlled when he charms her long-suffering aunt and uncle and gains their approval. Her second comes when she tells him that he cannot attend a picnic which her friends have invited them to, and he shows up anyway and charms all of them—and her, a little bit. (The picnic, by the way, has a band and people doing the twist—I might have actually enjoyed picnics had they been like this one.)
Pushpa, for one, is delighted with her friend’s rental husband.
Leena thinks he has an ulterior motive for sticking around: her wealth. (I wonder if maybe her bedroom wallpaper might not be responsible at least partly for her bad temper.)
As infuriating as she finds her hired husband though, she is also occasionally beguiled by him. And who wouldn’t be! Sanjeev Kumar is at his peak in this film—handsome, urbane, playful. He torments her with his changing moods and refusal to bend to her bossy demands; and he enlists the help of her friends to make her mend her ways.
The taming of the shrew continues as she devises a plan to send him off which goes awry and ends in him being injured. She feels very bad about it and begins to realize that she has feelings for him. Meanwhile, her aunt and uncle are planning a party to celebrate their marriage, and her uncle is ready to hand over her inheritance.
When her uncle tells them that he has put her property in both hers and Susheel’s names though, her suspicions are aroused again. When Susheel then disappears with all her papers (including the divorce) and jewelry and fails to turn up in time for the party, her anger and her family’s anxiety know no bounds.
Where has he gone? Has she been thoroughly deceived?
I liked this film very much. The songs are great (Laxmikant Pyarelal) and the dialogue extraordinarily witty at times. As I said earlier—Sanjeev Kumar was at the height of his career, and he really gets to show off his comedic skills. Leena Chandavarkar is very good as a spoiled, selfish brat whom you can’t help liking. I wish she had made more films (she married Kishore Kumar in 1980—his fourth and last wife; they had a son also).
MemsaabStory 