Neel Kamal (1947)

Seminal melodrama, although a commercial flop, introducing Raj Kapoor and Madhubala. The love triangle and drama about atheism is set in the Rajput court of Janakgarh. The king and queen are killed when the king’s evil brother-in-law Mangal Singh seizes power. Both their daughters escape. The younger princess, Kamala (Madhubala), is rescued and adopted by a family of Untouchables. She meets and nurses to health a young atheist sculptor, Madhusudhan (Kapoor), who falls in love with both Kamala and her sister (Begum Para), forcing Kamala to commit suicide. In Sharma’s classic romantic idiom, a lotus flower grows where she died.