Parakh (1960)

Nivaran, a village postmaster, receives a cheque for five lakh rupees from a stranger, Jagdish Chandra Roy, to be given to the most honest person in the village for the common good. Five local worthies decide to settle who that is by holding an election: the priest, the zamindar, the doctor, the road builder Bhanju Babu and the schoolmaster Rajat. Suddenly the doctor treats patients for free, the zamindar stops collecting taxes and the priest opens the temple to everyone - and then the dirty tricks begin, including the doctor poisoning the village pond to drum up patients. Rajat's romance with the postmaster's daughter Seema is used to smear him, and a moneylender moves to seize Nivaran's house. Sadhana plays Seema and Basanta Choudhury is Rajat, with Nazir Hussain as the postmaster and Motilal as the village postman. Bimal Roy directed, and unusually the music department wrote the film: Salil Chowdhury, the composer, wrote the story, and Shailendra, the lyricist, wrote the dialogue. Bimal Roy had planned a film without songs; Shailendra and Salil Chowdhury talked him into adding them, and the result includes Lata Mangeshkar's 'O Sajna Barkha Bahaar Aayi'. It won Bimal Roy his third Filmfare Award for Best Director in a row, after Madhumati and Sujata.