Shekhar is a smooth, likeable pickpocket who has just finished a jail term. He takes lodgings in a house where Rani, a young stage dancer who cannot dance any more because of an injury, struggles to support her family after her father lost his fortune and his theatre. Shekhar falls for her and is determined to help, even if that means going back to stealing, while his own past holds secrets of its own. Kismet, made at Bombay Talkies, was one of the biggest hits in Indian film history: it ran for more than three years at a single Calcutta cinema. Ashok Kumar's suave anti-hero was a new kind of leading man. The lost-and-found plot set a pattern for decades of Hindi films, and Anil Biswas's songs, including the defiant "Door hato ae duniya walon, Hindustan hamara hai", slipped past wartime censors to become a patriotic anthem.
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