Roti Kapda Aur Makaan (1974) starring Manoj Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, and Zeenat Aman

The struggle to remain good and maintain high morals when facing adverse situations in life can be a hard struggle; after all, there are a number of movies depicting how a criminal rose up in life because of poverty are a large number. Manoj Kumar has made a number of movies on the concept of patriotism, or on the struggle in life between the good and the bad, with this movie being an integral part of his collection. The name 'Roti Kapda aur Makaan' delineates this struggle, with the words literally translating into the following - Food, Clothes and House (Shelter), depicting the necessities of life.
The movie was a very successful movie, having struck a chord in the audience about the struggle to make ends meet and the moral problems that get associated with such struggles, becoming the most successful movie of 1974. The movie was made (produced and directed) by Manoj Kumar, and like many of his other movies, was a multi-starrer, starring Shashi Kapoor, Zeenat Aman, Amitabh Bachchan, Moushmi Chatterjee, besides Manoj Kumar in the lead role.
Some of the songs of the movie were very successful, such as "Hay Hay Yeh Majboori", "Main Na Bhoolunga", etc. The music for the movie was by Laxmikant-Pyarelal (earning him a Filmfare Award Nomination, and winning the Best Lyrics award for Santosh Anand).



The movie is about the head of a family, Bharat (Manoj Kumar) who takes on the responsibility for his family after the retirement of his father. He has 2 younger brothers Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) and Deepak (Dheeraj Kumar), as well as a sister Champa, who is eligible to get married. However, he is not so successful, not able to find work despite having a good education. The only earning he has is through a job as a singer, but it does not pay that much; this makes his girlfriend Sheetal (Zeenat Aman) extremely frustrated, and she starts working as a secretary to a rich businessman Mohan Babu (Shashi Kapoor), who starts falling in love with her; she is seemingly more interested in his wealth.
Bharat in the meantime is going through more struggles; his efforts to become a builder end in failure when the Government takes over his building site and leaves him with grave financial problems. Sheetal also gets engaged to her boss, and then Bharat's father dies. Even when a suitor is found for his sister Champa, Bharat is unable to get the required amount of money for the marriage. What does Bharat do ? How does he resist the temptation to get into crime ?