Chhoomantar

The story of film Chomantar (1958) revolves around Zarif, whose songs, amorous nature and flirting are making the whole village sick. He receives complaints every day and every day people beat him and send him back to his house, but he proves to be a very tough soul and survives every time.

He gets exiled from his village due to his stubbornness and one day his eyes meet Laila, the daughter of the Nawab of a village, Alauddin, and he loses his heart. As usual, he gets beaten up again but he is steadfast and has a promising temperament and succeeds in winning Laila's heart.

This time the Nawab's henchmen beat Zarif and throw him into the river, but a fisherman (Ghulam Muhammad) and his young daughter (Noor Jahan) pull him out of the river. Noor Jahan is in love with another rich man of the village (Aslam Parvez), but his father (Gul Zaman), in the greed of more wealth, wants to marry his son into a rich family. Now Zarif and Noor Jahan's pain is the same, but both are shocked when Laila gets married to Aslam Parvez.

On the day of wedding, Zarif disguises himself and replaces the bride Laila with Noor Jahan, but the joke is over. Undeterred by fear and trepidation, Zarif confesses his love to the crowd and Alauddin, impressed by his bravery, gives him a chance that if he brings one million rupees within three months, he will marry his daughter to Zarif. Zarif not only accepts this challenge but also adds another five hundred thousand rupees to it so that Noor Jahan can also get married to Aslam Parvez. Everyone agrees.

How was it possible for a poor man to arrange fifteen hundred thousand rupees in three months? In the era when a whole film was made for one lakh and the property, cars and bungalows of this amount were shown in the film "Sat Lakh". It should be remembered that in 1958, five maunds of flour were sold for 12 rupees and the price of one tola of pure gold was 114 rupees, which has reached four and a half lakh rupees in 2026..!

Zarif takes Noor Jahan to the city where a singer is performing at one place. When Noor Jahan joins in this song at the request of Zarif, the organizers get excited and give her the opportunity to sing in their theater where she gets two hundred rupees for the first performance. To this, Noor Jahan asks: "How much money is left in fifteen lakhs?" So Zarif replies with great satisfaction: "Not much, only fourteen lakhs, ninety-eight thousand eight hundred rupees are left..!"

Despite the progress, they do not get enough money to even touch the target of fifteen lakhs. In such a situation, the mutual quarrel and fight between the theater owners takes place in the market and Zarif gets an opportunity. He steals millions of rupees from a safe and reaches the village as promised. But the police also come after him and arrest a large criminal gang that is pursuing Zarif and making fake currency, for which he also receives a reward.

As promised, Zarif is not able to bring the huge amount of fifteen hundred thousand rupees, but Alauddin likes his intelligence, determination and independence and accepted his daughter Laila to marry him and Gul Zaman to marry Noor Jahan to Aslam Parvez.