Awaara is a film produced in 1951 for Hindi theater. The Hindi film is directed, produced, and performed by Raj Kapoor. Raj plays the lead male role, while he casts his father as the lead male role’s father. Awaara focuses on the lives of Raj (Raj Kapoor) and Rita (Nargis). Rita is privileged and wealthy, while Raj is a poor tramp.
Judge Raghunath is Raj’s wealthy father. Raghunath is a very ambitious and esteemed man of the court, and refuses to allow anything to taint his image. When his wife is kidnapped by robbers, she is found to be pregnant and is thrown from his house. While Raj, her unborn son was actually Judge Raghunath’s true son, the man is blinded by his fear that the son of a thief will become a thief regardless of proper parenting. Raj grows up without a father, in extreme poverty and desiring a father figure in his life. He suffers through school, but is overcome with the stress of having to keep a job as stay in school to care for himself. He meets a young girl named Rita, who soon becomes his best friend and confidant. Raj falls deeply in love with the beautiful girl, but fate separates them. Raj is kicked out of school for being unable to juggle both a job and an education, and he is separated from Rita. Alone and depressed, he often thinks of Rita and remembers how lovely she was, even as they spend so much time apart.
Raj, left without an education and little money for himself, turns to a life of crime as he steals to survive. Jagga, a criminal, acts as his father figure and the man that Raj looks up to. They band together and commit various crimes, Raj pleased with his ability to stay alive and have someone like Jagga to look after him. One desperate day they decide to rob a local bank. The pair, however, do not have a car in which to escape in, which poses a difficulty in their plan. Struck with a plan, Raj steals a purse from a woman exiting her car. He escapes her notice and hides, searching through her purse frantically for her keys. He cannot find them, however and is shocked and mortified by the fact that he has the purse and no keys to show for it. Raj elaborately acts as if he caught the thief and retrieved the purse for the robbed woman, only to find that the woman is Rita, the beautiful girl from his childhood. Raj later finds out a terrible secret on his father figure Jagga, and the aftermath pays a terrible toll on Raj.
The story is dramatic and compelling to the very end as the audience follows Raj through plot twist to plot twist. His life becomes an emotional rollercoaster that, while a little clichéd, is extremely entertaining for audiences everywhere. This Hindi movie is absolutely a must-watch.
