Just Bollywood Feature – Boot Polish (1954)

Boot Polish is a 1954 Hindi film directed by Prakash Arora and produced by Raj Kapoor. It won Best Film at the Filmfare Awards.

 

Storyline
Belu (Baby Naaz) and Bhola (Ratan Kumar) are left in the care of their wicked aunt Kamla (Chand Burque) after their mother dies. She forces them to beg in the streets and takes their money.

A bootlegger named John Chacha (David Abraham) teaches them self-respect and to work for a living instead of begging. They save to buy a shoe-polish kit and begin shining shoes. When Kamla discovers this, she beats them and kicks them out of the house.

Meanwhile John Chacha is arrested and the children are left to fend for themselves. When it rains and people stop having their shoes polished, the children are in danger of starving. Bhola wishes to never beg again and rejects a coin tossed to him on a rainy night. When Belu takes it out of hunger, Bhola slaps her and she drops it.

When police come, intent on taking the children, Belu escapes onto a train but Bhola is arrested. On board the train, Belu is adopted by a rich family and she is sad for her brother.

Bhola searches for Belu after getting out of custody but cannot find her. After running away from an orphanage, he is unable to find work and extremely hungry, and resorts to begging. He encounters Belu while begging at railway station where Belu and her adopted family are boarding a train for vacation. Humiliated, Bhola runs away but his sister pursues him. John Chacha has also come to the station to say goodbye and joins the chase but he falls and is injured. Bhola stops running and Belu and Bhola are reunited.

The rich family adopts Bhola also and they live happily ever after.
Watch the movie (from Youtube)

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