Majhli Didi (1967)

Hemangini, the middle daughter-in-law of a household, cannot bear to watch a young orphan boy being treated like a servant by her sister-in-law's family. She takes him under her wing, and her compassion soon sets off tension and resentment within the joint family, testing her marriage and her place in the home. Majhli Didi is Hrishikesh Mukherjee's adaptation of the Bengali story Mejdidi by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, a writer whose humane portraits of family life inspired many Hindi films. Meena Kumari gives one of her gentle, dignified performances, with Dharmendra as her husband, and Hemant Kumar composed the music.