Jeevan Jyoti (1953)

Jeevan Jyoti ("light of life") is a 1953 Hindi social drama directed by Mahesh Kaul. It is remembered above all as the screen debut of Shammi Kapoor, younger brother of Raj Kapoor, who would go on to become one of the most energetic romantic stars of the 1960s; here, long before Junglee and Teesri Manzil, he plays a far more restrained leading man. His co-star Chand Usmani was also starting her career. The story is a family and social drama of the kind common in early-1950s Hindi cinema, built around duty, love and sacrifice, and S. D. Burman composed the music. For film historians and Shammi Kapoor fans it is a chance to see where a famous career began.