Vidya

Vidya is a story of a shoe-repairer's son Chandu(Dev Anand) and the daughter of a wealthy family Vidya ( Suraiya ). They knew each other from childhood and Vidya encouraged and supported Chandu to go to school and get higher education. As they grew up they also developed an affection to each and decided to marry. But Vidya's father vehemently opposed the proposal and kind of locked up Vidya in their house. The story has many side acts which though are not critical but provided some of the elements to build the entire movie. This is one of Dev Anand's half a dozen films with Suraiya and though he looked pretty young and immature did play his part very well. Suraiya as the educated daughter of a wealthy family played with good reserve and integrity. She looked very well in simple Indian woman's dress without the weight of many ornaments which she is normally seen. An unknown actress ( to me ) named Maya Banerjee played the role of a kind of villain girl Leela and Amirbai Karnataki gave a very good performance both in acting and singing as the revered mother of Vidya. Overall the movie was good entertainment but it lacked the cohesion of a general theme and all the pieces did not fit very well together. Cuckoo gave a nice dance performance with a good song. The songs were all very melodious specially the one in the lake with Chandu and Vidya on a canoe. The gave it a grade of six out of ten.