''Dr. Vidya'' is a 1962 Hindi

Black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

Romantic

family film A children's film, or family film, is a film genre that generally relates to children in the context of home and family. Children's films are made specifically for children and not necessarily for a general audience, while family films are made ...

written by Mohan Segal and directed by Rajendra Bhatia. The film stars

Vyjayanthimala Vyjayanthimala Bali ( Raman; born 13 August 1933), known mononymously as Vyjayanthimala, is an Indian parliamentarian, dancer and former actress. Regarded as one of Hindi cinema's greatest actresses and dancers, she is the recipient of sever ...

in the

title role The title character in a narrative work is one who is named or referred to in the title of the work. In a performed work such as a play or film, the performer who plays the title character is said to have the title role of the piëce. The title o ...

and

Manoj Kumar Manoj Kumar (born Harikrishan Giri Goswami; 24 July 1937 – 4 April 2025) was an Indian actor, film director, screenwriter, lyricist and editor who worked in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most successful actors in t ...

in the lead, with

Leela Chitnis Leela Chitnis (''née'' Nagarkar; 9 September 1909 – 14 July 2003) was an Indian actress in the Indian film industry, active from the 1930s to the 1980s. In her early years she starred as a romantic lead, but she is best remembered for her lat ...

Nazir Hussain Nazir Hussain (15 May 1922 – 16 October 1987) was an Indian actor, director and screenwriter. He was famous as a character actor in Hindi cinema and was a pioneer of Bhojpuri cinema. He acted in almost 500 films, with Dev Anand starring in ...

, Helen, Sunder,

Madan Puri Madan Puri (30 September 1915 – 13 January 1985) was an Indian actor of Hindi and Punjabi films. His brothers were actors Chaman Puri and Amrish Puri. As a character actor mainly in negative roles (villain), he acted in about 430 films in ...

Prem Chopra Prem Chopra (born 23 September 1935) is an Indian actor in Hindi films. He has acted in 380 films over a span of over 60 years. Life and education Chopra, the third of six children of Ranveerlal and Rooprani Chopra, a Punjabi Hindu family, was ...

and Mumtaz Begum, forming an

ensemble cast In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that comprises many principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time.Random House: ensemble acting Linked 2013-07-17 Structure In contrast to the po ...

. The film was produced by Mohan Segal under his own banner, Deluxe Films. The film's score was composed by

S. D. Burman Sachin Dev Burman (1 October 1906 – 31 October 1975) was an Indian music director and singer. He was a member of the Tripura royal family, but his father was excluded from the throne. He started his career with Bengali films in 1937. He lat ...

, with lyrics provided by

Majrooh Sultanpuri Asrar ul Hassan Khan (1 October 1919 − 24 May 2000), better known as Majrooh Sultanpuri, was an Indian Urdu poet and lyricist in the Hindi language film industry. He wrote lyrics for numerous Hindi film soundtracks. He was one of the dom ...

and

Raja Mehdi Ali Khan Raja Mehdi Ali Khan (23 September 1915 – 29 July 1966) was an Indian poet, writer and a lyricist. Early life and career Raja Mehdi Ali Khan was born in 1915 into a Punjabi Rajput family of the Janjua clan, Mehdi Ali lost his father when he ...

. While the editing was done by Pratap Dave. This story was adapted from the Marathi film ''Shikleli Bayko'' (1959) (Meaning " Educated Wife").

Plot

The movie was shot in an era when educated people in cities were getting influenced by the western culture, hence the people from rural areas who placed a lot of importance on values and culture, strongly abstained from marrying into city people's homes. Geeta (Vyjanthimala) is a girl from a well-to-do family and is well educated, her parents had brought up her with traditional values and respect for those values. After her graduation, her parents decide to marry her off to Ratan Chowdhury, (Manoj Kumar) the son of a zamindar, who had the mind frame that a highly educated wife would be incapable of handling and managing a home, especially in a joint family. Later, he marries Geeta, but his mentality and the talk of others stop him from accepting her. He disowns her and poor Geeta has to go back to her parents' house. Her father-in-law (Nazir Hussain) also does in a state of shock after leaving Geeta at her father's (Shivraj) place Even after a lot of insistence from her parents and friends, she refuses to remarry. Instead, she continues her studies to become a doctor. After garnering a degree in medical science, she goes back to Ratan's village as Dr Vidya as none of the villagers had seen her during the marriage ceremony. She stays at the same house as Ratan on a rental basis, As he has shifted to another house. Geeta wants to clear the wrong perceptions that Ratan has about her. Ratan couldn't recognise her, as he had not even seen her face, even during marriage. He falls in love with Vidya and intends to marry her, but one day during the annual cart race, Ratan meets with an accident and suffers a very bad injury, after which needs surgery. Due to the unavailability of any other doctor, Geeta has to do the job. She performs it successfully. Will Ratan accept Geeta in her new avatar?

Cast

as Geetha / Dr. Vidya *

as Ratan Chowdhury *

* Helen * Sunder *

* Mumtaz Begum

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack was composed by

with lyrics provided by

and

Box office

At the end of its theatrical run, the film grossed around 80,00,000, thus becoming the eighteenth highest-grossing film of 1962.

References

External links

*
Dr. Vidya profile
at ''Upperstall.com''
Dr. Vidya profile
at ''Gomolo.com'' 1960s Hindi-language films 1960s Indian films 1962 films Indian black-and-white films Indian romantic drama films 1962 romantic drama films Films scored by S. D. Burman {{1960s-Hindi-film-stub