Jamuna Barua

When young Jyoti is suddenly widowed, her life takes a dark turn as she faces an indecent proposal from her late husband's brother and pressure from her own sister to become a prostitute. Caught between impossible choices, Jyoti must navigate a treacherous world to find her own path.

Devdas, the son of a zamindar, and Parvati, his neighbour's daughter, are childhood sweethearts. However, class and caste differences prevent their marriage. Devdas is sent off to Calcutta, while Paro is married off to an aged rich widower. In Calcutta, as remorse drives him to alcohol, Devdas meets Chandramukhi, a prostitute. All Indian prints of this Bengali version were destroyed in a fire that ravaged New Theatre’s studios. Today, only one copy of the film survives which belongs to the Bangladesh Film Archives. Of that copy almost forty percent is destroyed.

For the first time in Indian cinema, flashback was used for storytelling.

The poor but educated Mahim and his childhood friend, the rich but conservative Suresh, both fall in love with the same woman, the liberated Achala. Mahim marries her and they move to a village but she cannot forget Suresh. Her smoldering unhappiness takes the form of resentment towards the orphaned Mrinal, raised by Mahim's father, and receives a dramatic visual embodiment when their house burns down. Mahim falls ill, is rescued by Suresh, and nursed back to health by Achala. On a train (a metaphor for the irreversibly linear course of life) to a health resort where Mahim is supposed to convalesce, Suresh on a rainswept night gives in to temptation and elopes with Achala. At the end of the film, there is a dubious reconciliation as Achala is shown following Mahim's 'good' traditionalism with Sharatchandra's barely concealed hostility towards Achala's liberated Brahmo Samaj upbringing.

The story follows two friends, Mohan and Bhola, who stumble upon a mysterious garden house called "Mayakanan." The house is owned by Dr. Naresh Ray, a wealthy scientist with a dark secret. When Ray sets his sights on Shanta, Mohan's fiancée, he resorts to sinister tactics to win her over.

Devdas, the son of a zamindar, and Parvati, his neighbour's daughter, are childhood sweethearts. However, class and caste differences prevent their marriage. Devdas is sent off to Calcutta, while Paro is married off to an aged rich widower. In Calcutta, as remorse drives him to alcohol, Devdas meets Chandramukhi, a tawaif.

Feudal melodrama: Veena (Jamuna), daughter of an exploitative landlord and wife of the drunkard Chunilal (Shivdasani), defies her family and fights for the exploited peasantry. In the process she falls in love with the poor Madhu (Nandrekar). When her evil husband cannot undermine the peasants' unity he commits suicide. The heroine is disinherited by her father, but remains committed to nationalism. The film prominently deploys Gandhian symbols (e.g. the spinning wheel), and contrasts an idyllic notion of erstwhile India to the penury of its people today.