10. Awaara (1951)

Alternative title: The Tramp

Language: Hindi

Director: Raj Kapoor

Running time: 193 mins

Starring: Raj Kapoor, Nargis, Prithviraj Kapoor

Company: RK Films

Arriving right at the start of the 1950s, this film documenting the oedipal struggles between an autocratic judge and his estranged son, set the tone for a lot of Bombay cinema that followed. The motif of the long-lost son coming back to avenge the wrongs meted out to him and his mother by the patriarch was forcefully taken up by Bachchan at a later date. The songs were a smash hit, especially the title song that established Raj Kapoor's iconic status as India's favourite tramp as well as helped the film become iconic of modern India in the Communist and Arab worlds. The tramp, free of traditional bonds, became symbolic of a bourgeois socialist culture purporting to be the common 'national' culture cutting across class boundaries. The erotic match between Kapoor and Nargis was much appreciated and thus was launched the first great screen pair in the history of Bombay cinema.