घर की लाज

A 1941 social family drama produced and directed by V. M. Vyas for his Sunshine Pictures banner. Surendra (Nazir), a highly educated and wealthy young man, is married to a homely but devoted and capable wife (Shanta Hublikar). He falls into bad company and ruins himself through gambling, drink and womanising while his wife silently endures. Only when he hits the lowest point of his life do his eyes open; he abandons his vices and returns to become an ideal husband — restoring the honour of the home that gives the film its title.

The score, by Annasaheb Mainkar with lyrics throughout by Ehsan Rizvi, was carried by the on-screen voices of Kalyani, Kaushalya and Shanta Hublikar — a typical pre-Lata arrangement in which the heroines sang their own numbers. Ten songs are documented, ranging from devotional addresses (Gokul Ab To Jau Re) to lighthearted dance-songs (Hum Gaye Tum Naacho) and the wistful parting song Ye Ruth Kar Mujhse Ja Rahe The.

Sunshine Pictures was the Bombay banner under which V. M. Vyas both produced and directed. Among the singing cast, Kaushalya was reportedly a child of about twelve when the film was made, while Kalyani was a young adult — a pairing that performed the duet Hum Gaye Tum Naacho together.

Ghar Ki Laaj sits squarely in the early-1940s tradition of the reform-minded social film, where domestic virtue and the long-suffering wife are held up against the temptations of urban modernity. Its soundtrack — composed by Annasaheb Mainkar to the verses of Ehsan Rizvi — is a useful document of the period's transitional film-song style, drawing on devotional and folk-flavoured idioms while the playback singing was still done on screen by the actresses themselves.

Like most films of the era, Ghar Ki Laaj survives chiefly through its song catalogue and credit listings preserved on Hindi film-song archives rather than through prints of the film itself. It remains a representative example of V. M. Vyas's reform-social output and of Annasaheb Mainkar's modest but workmanlike body of early-1940s film music.